Lost Boys
by ness2
Summary: AU. Jake still undercover, and Rawley is sending a school trip to London.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Lost Boys  
Author: Ness  
Category: other, a/u  
Disclaimer: Fanfic. Illegal, yes, but not immoral.  
Note: Almost everyone's in this, but becomes very Jake/Hamilton in 2nd half. Oh, and I got obsessed with Hamilton's dad.

Spoilers: I'm messing with canon here. Forget the kiss on the roof. The cotillion showdown never happened. Everyone still thinks Jake's a bloke. Scout and Bella are trying to be friends. And Will's scholarship covers the cost of a school trip to London.

* * *

The low slanting rays of the sun threw long shadows across the lawn and made the western aspects of the school buildings glow golden. Over in London it was probably wet and dank weather right now. Will could hardly wait. Between him and the front of the Rawley dorms fifty yards away, some of the guys were kicking a ball around casually. He wanted to join them if only to work off some of his excess energy. However, in front of him was Jake, who was steadfastly failing to get the point of Tithonus.  
  
_I know he's smart enough to understand it.. hell, he's smart enough to explain maths to me. But Finn always insists that we tie literature into the emotions in our own lives. "This is a lit class. Not therapy" Jake said, looking hunted, at our last session. Jake's too compulsively reserved to admit he ever made a choice, or wished a wish, that he regretted_  
  
Will's attention wandered and his eyes followed the ball. He planned what to pack that evening. His mom had promised to drop off her old suitcase at the diner. Jake, frowning, was reading through the poem again when they heard shouting.  
  
"Jake, Jake, my computer needs you." Laughter in his voice, Marcus came up to them with his laptop under an arm. He winked at Will.  
  
Will's mood lightened. Marcus loved vinyl; Jake used the bands' web sites. Marcus played board games; Jake was obsessed by his game-boy. If the bickering wasn't always as funny as Jake and Marcus found it, at least it was always good natured.  
  
"What have you done to it" Jake asked Marcus with foreboding, indicating the computer.  
  
"Dunno" with the calm of a boy who could afford a replacement. "The buttons don't work."  
  
"The keyboard's ..sticky." Jake prodded it fastidiously.  
  
"A little soda" Marcus dismissed.  
  
"What's this, attached to the bottom of the mouse?"  
  
Marcus peered at it closely. "It's a throat lozenge," he said, astonished. "But, Ger had that strep throat a week ago. Nah," he reassured Jake, "that isn't what broke the box. There's only a sliver left, see. Ger gave it a good old suck."  
  
Will and Jake took pains to look revolted.  
  
"It worked fine till I downloaded that weird thing."  
  
Jake was giving him a dirty look.  
  
"Ger's a bit of a slob" he admitted, throwing his roomie to the wolves.  
  
"Marcus." Jake shook her head. "Letting you own a computer is like giving Ryder a puppy."  
  
"I hate to break it to you" Will told Jake "but it's an inanimate object. Not a pet."  
  
"My laptop's not inanimate" she declared.  
  
"Will and Marcus exchanged looks.  
  
"It Rocks" she said, and grinned. "Okay. Leave it with me. It'll take time to fix."  
  
"Can't you do it now? Cause if it's a major job of work, then, I could.."  
  
Jake and Will looked at Marcus questioningly.  
  
"I could phone the help desk" he said uncertainly.  
  
"I know how you feel about that" said Jake.  
  
"They're not helpful, and they probably don't have a desk" quoted Will.  
  
"Or, I could send it in to a shop" he concluded. "I thought you'd just bait me for a minute or so, and hand it back, done." His face was atypically concerned. He knew they were due to go on Finn's trip, and both of them would be busy getting themselves sorted out.  
  
"It's cool, it's fine" said Jake. "Only, Will has to get to the diner for a shift in an hour so we need to do this study date now."  
  
Marcus looked from Jake to Will. "Date?"  
  
Will sighed, Jake rolled her eyes.  
  
"I'm giving Jake pointers on Tennyson" said Will. "In exchange for maths tutoring from him."  
  
Tennyson and applied math. Marcus backed away a step. "Don't let me, you know, get involved in that" he said.

* * *

: 

When Will made it to Friendly's, Scout was already there, leaning across the counter to do some veiled flirting with his half sister. Will didn't think he was conscious of flirting, but it was nasty anyway.  
  
"Aren't you going to wish me luck? I'm off to Europe on Monday."  
  
"It's not the Normandy landings Scout" she told him mildly.  
  
"Maybe not, but I'm all wired up about it" Will intervened. "Oh, Scout, Rory wants to see you in the office about the shifts you'll be missing."  
  
Bella smiled at Will wryly when Scout left. She knew perfectly well he'd been separating them - again - to defuse things. She was grateful. "You're such an Old Testament prophet Will."  
  
"I don't know what you mean" he said.

* * *

Will stumbled out on Oxford street looking shell shocked. The pudding faced store clerk had been comprehensively rude to him. All that casual verbal brutality.. this was the place where Ryder learnt it. "Have you thought" he asked Jake "that this is where Ryders come from?"  
  
Jake raised both eyebrows and looked around. The buildings were grey, the pavements uneven, and every third shop ran banners screaming Closing Down Sale! Everything Must Go! It was a scene of intense decay, but aside from being unpleasant to be around, it did not bring Ryder to her mind.  
  
"Did you get the street atlas?" Hamilton asked practically.  
  
"London A to Zed." Will started to get it out. "There's something I wanted to talk to you guys about" he said, muffled, as he scrunched over to rummage in his bag.  
  
"Yeah?" Hamilton was staring at plasterwork detailing high above street level.  
  
"Wait till Scout gets back" Jake suggested, pointing across the road.  
  
Scout was biting into a scotch egg when he got back. God knew how long it had been in the chiller cabinet. He stopped short to look at the inside. "Is this even food?"  
  
Will wasn't interested. "I've been talking to Finn about Thursday."  
  
Scout hurled the egg at a startled pigeon and gave Will his full attention. School outings of a relentlessly uplifting nature had been arranged for the class on every day except Thursday. Finn's idea of variety had been to combine, over a week's viewing, a history (Henry V, Barbican) a comedy (As You Like It, open air theatre, Regent's Park) and a tragedy (Hamlet, the rebuilt Globe). It rained during all three performances, and they were only under a roof for one of them. Finn was full of zesty joy on the bus back, but Marcus wanted to know if Jake still had his throat lozenge.  
  
Marcus also claimed to have seen a nightclub entrance down a side street while they were being dragged from a site where Dickens wrote something, to one where Dr Johnson said something else. The Rawley consensus was that Marcus was guilty of wishful thinking on a grand scale. As far as they could tell, Londoners spent their time hurtling along pavements at breakneck speed, performing in Shakespeare, and staffing museums. It was hard to imagine them dancing.  
  
Will had done a massive amount of background reading and was glad of it. He only regretted the hours he wasted eating and sleeping. Hamilton was equable, pointing out privately that the boys' parents would want them to be on a cultural binge and Finn could care less if the boys hated it so long as the parents were happy. Scout had years of experience of letting, say, candlelit performances of Hayden in draughty churches, wash over him, and Jake showed a detached technical interest in the theatres. "There's no point whining" the four of them had agreed. Then, they'd sneaked out of the hotel.  
  
"Thursday" Scout said now.  
  
"Well, Friday we head off to Stratford on Avon-" There was a marked lack of enthusiasm from Will's listeners. "- but on Thursday we make our own agenda. Thing is, we can't go off on our own."  
  
"What? Why the hell not? I need some alone time." Jake totally lost it. It startled Will and Scout.  
  
Jake normally spent a lot of time holed up in his dorm. Hamilton was less surprised. "Relax" he said now. "It's a school rule. Minimum groups of four on an away trip. Less likely to get lost-"  
  
"Less likely how?" Jake demanded.  
  
Hamilton shrugged, and continued "Less chaotic for the faculty to have fewer groups to chase."  
  
"That would be Finn." Jake didn't look remotely sympathetic to Finn's troubles.  
  
"I was thinking" Will said "we could be a minimum group of four."  
  
"Sure" Scout said warmly, and Hamilton chimed in.  
  
"I could say I was with you" suggested Jake "and then go off-"  
  
"No!" said Will. His scholarship was his lifeline. No way was he going to risk pissing Rawley off.  
  
Jake read his expression and sighed. Then she saw Hamilton watching her.  
  
"It'll be fine" he said. "Did you have, like, plans?"  
  
Will looked nervous. He had a ton of plans.  
  
"Nah" she said, giving in. "Just, to unwind. Too much interaction."  
  
Scout nudged Will derisively at this last.

* * *

On Thursday Will seemed hell bent on visiting every museum in the city. When the museum of London opened up at 10am, there were Will and his three conscripts, lined up on the doorstep. They left via St Paul's Cathedral and Prince Henry's room on Fleet street, then north to Sir John Soane's en route for the British Museum. Having gone past the Elgin marbles, the Rosetta stone and any number of Egyptian mummies, they emerged onto a courtyard populated by feral pigeons. The sky was overcast.  
  
"My feet hurt" announced Scout, dropping onto the broad steps.  
  
Will glanced from the guidebook to his watch. "Next stop is the Wallace Collection. They have a really cool gallery of suits of armour" he coaxed.  
  
Sitting beside Scout, Jake took her baseball cap off to massage her temples.  
  
"If I see one more glass case with old stuff in it today .." Hamilton said slowly.  
  
The troops were rebelling. No question. "And, after the Wallace Collection" said Will "further west is Hyde Park. We'll pass Marble Arch where Tyburn used to be - of course, there's no gallows anymore-" His friends were giving him unloving looks. "-cut across the lawns, check out the Albert Memorial and hit the V and A before they close."  
  
Scout groaned.  
  
"When do we eat?" Hamilton demanded. He was shocked that he had to ask.  
  
"Put your wallet away in the open street, Ham. You'll get hassled for change" said Jake.  
  
"You know London, don't you" Scout asked thoughtfully.  
  
Jake shrugged, and put the hat back on. "Mom's done a lot of work here, yeah. We're north of the theatre district right now."  
  
Will was exasperated. Europe might be a once in a lifetime chance for him. None of them got that.  
  
"Do you know anywhere good to eat?" Scout was asking Jake.  
  
"There's a lot of restaurants in Soho." Jake looked sidelong at Hamilton "and we could stop by the Photographer's Gallery near Leicester Square tube."  
  
"Lester? You pronounce that Lester? But it's got all those ..unnecessary letters" Scout disapproved. He was peering at Will's map, oblivious to the agitated boy still holding it.  
  
"Europeans" said Jake. "They do terrible things to the English language."  
  
"But what about the Albert Memorial?" Will almost whined.  
  
"It'll still be here next time you visit, man" Hamilton told him without looking up from his camera. He was trying to get a profile shot of Jake watching the crowds milling around the forecourt.  
  
"I may never be in Europe again" Will panicked.  
  
"If you want to, you'll be back" Scout said. "But now, we eat." He sounded very firm about both statements.  
  
"Yeah" said Hamilton, equally determined.  
  
Jake punched Will on the shoulder. "You're outvoted, man. Welcome to democracy."  
  
Will glanced down at his own shoulder, all, - _how did this happen_? -

* * *

All but four of the boys had made it back to the hotel hours ago. Tired and increasingly angry, Finn lurked near reception to intercept the defaulters. "What kind of time do you call this?" and "We run things on a light rein; we expect you gentlemen to respect the rules we set" swirled round in his head. He dozed off, and woke up disorientated. The night manager was standing over his chair.  
  
- _what? What am I doing sleeping down here? Oh, wait, the boys. Is he telling me they're back?_ - Finn squinted up at the man, who looked very upset.  
  
"Mr Finn" he was saying, apparently for the second or third time.  
  
"Yeah?" Finn pulled himself straighter in the chair, as far as he could. It was lushly upholstered in theyexpectitofuswe'reEnglish chintz. Also, he was still drowsy. He took a peek at reception. The four keys he was focussed on were still dangling there.  
  
"We've had a phone call from the American Embassy."  
  
"What?!" Finn woke right up.  
  
The night manager hesitated. One thing he liked about nights was he didn't have to interact with guests. This was going to require tact. "The four youths who didn't check in last night-"  
  
"What?" Finn said again.He scrubbed his hands over his face. - _what have they done, to get the embassy involved? I'll kill them -  
_  
"Maybe we'd better have this conversation in an office" the hotel man said belatedly. One of the cleaners was buffing the floor now. He was having to raise his voice above the baby hovercraft machine.  
  
"What have they done? Why is the Embassy involved?" Finn snapped. - _I will kill them_ -  
  
"This way, please. They haven't done anything wrong. They've been victims of a crime."  
  
Finn felt sick. "Are they hurt?"  
  
- _might be_ - the other man thought. "The embassy were phoned by the Calhoun family-"  
  
"Can't you answer any of my questions?" Finn shouted.  
  
"- who were directly contacted by the kidnappers."  
  
Finn sank into an office chair. "Kidnappers" he said, stunned.  
  
He seemed to be taking this quietly. The manager was encouraged. "I have a contact name at the embassy-" he looked at Finn for a moment, then added "I'll write it down for you."  
  
Finn was staring into the middle distance. - _I must phone the dean. In a minute. Oh, god_ - he thought. "Wait" he called as the manager hurried out the door to get the phone number "Is this political? Scout's father is a Senator."  
  
"No, no" the other man said. "It's about money."


	2. lost

  
  
Will got in the cab with great reluctance. He was on a tight budget and only a half mile walk should take them to a bus or a train or something. He wouldn't get them lost. He had his map.  
  
"Get in the cab" said Scout.  
  
Will sat by the window, staring around him, trying to pick out what was foreign about the scene. When the car got bogged down in traffic he twisted across Scout to check what the fare display read. Scout was slumped beside him, eyes shut; beyond, Hamilton and Jake talked to each other in low voices.  
  
Will was relieved when the streets got less congested. The fare clock had been ticking away even when the car was stuck and it made him nervous.  
  
-_ divide by four .. what is that in real money? I'm the only one on a budget. The way they roll their eyes whenever I mention I'm poor is no help at all. It's not like I go without luxuries out of some twisted kinky pleasure. Are we nearly there? ..I'm not ashamed of being poor but when I'm open about not being able to afford things the Rawley kids accuse me of martyrdom or trolling for pity. It's called living within my means. Those spoilt brats should try it sometime. Scout's normally pretty cool but the minute he gets a blister it's all, "Screw your budget, get a cab." Rory said there'd be overtime going at Friendly's next month. I should never have splurged on that leather bound Vanity Fair -  
  
-The click that machine makes every time the fare goes up a notch is driving me crazy. Oh, hey, is that the Greenwich naval place? That's the thing here. You turn a corner, just walking along, and you run into a world famous landmark. Wait a minute, I thought that was miles away _-  
  
Will dug the street atlas out again to trace their route. He frowned. The window between them and the driver was shut, but even so he spoke in an undertone. "Guys."  
  
"Yeah?" Scout didn't surface but the other two turned.  
  
"Never take the first hansom cab-" At their expressions, he protested "It's a Sherlock Holmes quote."  
  
Hamilton said "I thought you read Hobbes and Faulkner."  
  
"I went through a course of London themed fiction to prepare for this trip" Will explained simply.  
  
Jake poked Scout in the ribs. "Please. Tell me he's kidding."  
  
Scout didn't open his eyes. "He's not."  
  
"Thing is" Will said. "I think he's taking us back by the long route." He tapped his atlas. He hoped he was wrong.  
  
"Taxi drivers." Jake looked annoyed.  
  
"No Jake, the really long route. We're almost out of London."  
  
Jake looked at the road signs, at first casual, then alarmed.  
  
Scout sat up. "What's going on?"  
  
"I have no idea. Do any of you have a cell phone on you?" Jake asked, thinking - _how ironic is it to suddenly want one of those things around?_ -  
  
Apparently nobody had a phone. Their coverage didn't extend over here. They were out of central London now, swiftly moving south and east. Dusk was drawing in.  
  
Hamilton surreptitiously tried the door though he wasn't sure he could jump out of a vehicle at this speed.  
  
It was centrally locked.  
  
The driver must have noticed how suspiciously they were acting. He swerved to the kerb halfway between street lights and reached into the glove compartment. Hamilton pulled openly at his door.  
  
The driver had a handgun. Will's jaw dropped. Things like this didn't happen for real. How did this come about? His friends looked petrified. Tarrantino films had never conveyed the sense he had now, of being too hypnotised by the barrel of the gun to move or even think. -_ bullets. Out of that barrel. Dad always said, what would stop me thinking. Bullets. My god_ -  
  
Scout found his voice. "What the hell is going on?" he screamed.

* * *

Scout was more or less tossed on his ass into the room, still ranting. The others went more quietly, cowed by the gun muzzle pressed lightly into Hamilton's temple. Scout was too angry to respond to the threat to Hamilton with anything but ..well, more anger. None of his demands for information had been met. "What the fuck is this" he was going as the door shut on them. A lock clicked.  
  
Hamilton, shivering with reaction, began to check out the room. The walls were painted institution mint, the floor was bare boards. A large uncurtained sash window let in fuzzy orange light from the street, opposite the door they'd come in. There was another door, ajar, in a side wall. A bare mattress was thrown down in a corner. He pulled a wooden chest under the window to sit on, keeping his back to the others. The window he stared out of was barred with a metal grille. He rubbed the side of his head, hard, where the gun had rested. Jake was speaking to Scout.  
  
"I think they wanted you." Jake was very pale.  
  
"What do you mean?" It was Will who asked.  
  
"Didn't you see, it was on the front seat of the cab when we got out. They had a folder file with a picture of Scout."  
  
"This was planned?" The shock in Scout's face renewed.  
  
"And the rest of us? Wrong place, wrong time?" Will was flushed. His anger showed in the intensity of his voice, in his narrowing eyes.  
  
"I don't know. Maybe."  
  
Scout swallowed. "I'm sorry guys."  
  
"It's not your fault, man." She added, not wholly convincingly "I'm glad you're not alone for this."  
  
Will's mind was racing. "Is this political?"  
  
"How should I know?" Scout stalked over to Hamilton at the window. "You okay?" he asked, trying not to sound brusque.  
  
"I'm cool." Hamilton's expression was neutral. "There's bars on the window."  
  
Scout looked out. It was full dark now. They were four flights above a narrow street. The bare bulb in the room they were in was weak enough that the street lights were an appreciable help. This must've been a nursery.  
  
The room was cold.  
  
"Edwardian society parents used to keep their kids out of the way of the rest of the house. They kind of led separate lives" Will remembered.  
  
Scout gave him a wry look, thinking back over a childhood of nights alone in his room to the distant sound of his parents networking.  
  
"But who'd keep a child here?" Will was pacing. "It's like a prison."  
  
"Convenient for these guys" Hamilton said dryly.  
  
Jake checked out the half open door. "Ensuite toilet" she announced.  
  
Hamilton looked back at the mattress. "How long do they mean to keep us here?"

* * *

It was all very strange. Apart from a roaring in his ears, Steven felt less than he would have thought possible. He searched himself in vain for an urge to rail against the authorities, or for fear, or even for a conviction that this was truly happening. Everything felt unreal, and he was distantly puzzled that his thought processes went on regardless. He could observe himself from the outside, as if this were an out of body experience, and the man he saw was very calm, in control, making logical decisions.  
  
- _I'm keeping this show on the road _- he told himself.  
  
Arrangements were made for him and Kate to be on a plane to England first thing on Saturday. The school would have to do without him. - _The faculty are being very supportive_ - he thought. He made a note to thank them later.  
  
Kate wanted to get to London now. Steven put his phone on hold for a minute. "As soon as possible. I agree."  
  
"Now" she said.  
  
"We have to bring the other students back. Talk to lawyers. Reassure parents." He frowned. "Do you know, I still haven't been able to contact Ms Pratt? I've left five voice mail messages."  
  
"Reassure **me**" said Kate.  
  
"I'll call you back" he said into the phone.  
  
"Steven?"  
  
He shook his head. "I have an appointment in town."  
  
"An appointment?" Her voice rose.  
  
"I'm seeing the Krudsky parents. It's not something I can duck out of. They'll be as upset as we are."  
  
"Maybe more so" Kate said bitterly.  
  
"Can you come with me?" he asked her. "You're good with people."  
  
Steven walked briskly, and alone, to his car. - _Should I talk to Hamilton's girlfriend? Who is it this week, anyway? I lost track months ago. The last one I registered was that junior ..Getty, was it? I distinctly remember I spoke to him seriously about being tactful when he moved on since she has several younger siblings and cousins.. ("When I move on?" "Hamilton. I'm your father. It's my place to say these things. You have a terrible attention span." He looked so angry. Only respect kept him quiet.) ..his restlessness bothers me. Kate says it's normal for a teenage boy but I don't like to think of him hurting all those girls' feelings_ -  
  
The meeting with the Krudskys went every bit as unpleasantly as Steven had feared. Brian Krudsky was openly hostile, and, what was more upsetting, Karen Krudsky was red eyed and distraught.  
  
"It's no use blaming Mr Fleming, honey" she said, more ineffectually than Steven would have liked.  
  
"His damn school had responsibility for the safety of those boys, right? They should've supervised the stupid brats."  
  
"The young men were promised-" Steven momentarily forgot he was talking to a Rawley resident. Never, even in his thoughts, did he use the term townie.  
  
"Young men?" Brian exploded. "Don't give me that. I live here."  
  
"The idea is that if we call them gentlemen often enough, at some point they'll decide to live up to it" Steven said wryly. "That's not the point right now."  
  
Karen passed a mug of instant coffee to him. "I heard your son is one of the missing boys" she said sympathetically.  
  
"Hamilton. Yes. I do know how you feel."  
  
"That's not **the point right now** either. The point is that your school failed in its responsibility to take care of four minors." Brian slammed the door on his way out.  
  
Karen tracked her husband's progress down the street nervously. "But what can you possibly be expected to do? The police are doing everything they can" she said to Steven.  
  
"Senator Calhoun is using a lot of influence."  
  
Karen pursed her lips. The fact that Scout's disappearance was the high priority would be adding insult to injury. "I know Scout" she offered, as a safer thing to say.  
  
"The four of them are friends" he said, turning the mug in his hands. "All of the faculty who teach Will speak highly of him. Not only as a scholar."  
  
She nodded. It was no more than she expected. "You get scared of so much on your kid's behalf" she said wryly. "But I never expected this. Will was so enthusiastic when I called by the diner."

* * *

Kate sobbed herself to sleep on Friday night. Later, Steven realized that he hadn't handled that well. While she cried, every reassuring speech he thought of: "Hamilton's a big, self reliant boy.." "I'm sure he's not afraid and unhappy.." "Why should a bunch of unknown law breaking people hurt him?" was choked off. He asked himself how truthful any reassurances would be. Hamilton was young, and not at all self reliant.. - _and I know he's afraid and unhappy _-  
  
Steven lay in bed stroking Kate's hair in silence. He told himself it would be patronising her to tell her comforting lies. Later he wished he'd gone ahead and insulted her intelligence. They both needed any comfort they could get. 

Finn met them at Heathrow airport looking even more dishevelled than usual. He and Kate cried together. Steven watched them, wooden faced. - He cares about his students. Of course, I believe kindness should take the form of practical help, not pointless emotion -  
  
"Before anything else" said Kate "I want to see Hamilton's room."  
  
Finn took them up directly they reached the hotel. He kept glancing at Kate, afraid she'd break down.  
  
"We're here for all the boys" Steven reminded her once they were in private. "Not just our own."

* * *

"Okay" said Scout briskly. "Pool our resources."  
  
"What" said Will.  
  
"Or to quote Tolkein" said Jake with her usual dryness, "what have we got in our pocketses."  
  
Four wallets plopped onto the bare mattress. Scout's fell open to reveal a snap of Bella. Will gave him a glare for that. Jake had a comb and a tiny pot of hair gel. Will was carrying his Rawley student ID card. Hamilton still had his house keys, attached to a key ring heavy with miniature folding gadgets. The A-Z of London. A packet of trail mix from Jake's bag. (Hamilton's hand went out to it reflexively. Will swatted him away. "Best save it for when we're hungry." "I'm hungry **now**.")  
  
Will had a notebook with an elastic band holding the pages together, and a pen. Jake had a handful of cds. (Hamilton rolled his eyes. "What?", defensively. "How bad is it?" "It's Travis." "Never heard of them. But you like Abba, and Dido, and Sarah McLachlan-" "Shut up Fleming.")  
  
A half written postcard addressed to Hamilton's mom. From Scout a bar of swiss chocolate, and bottled water. Will gave Hamilton a stern look. A pocket size hardback of Bleak House from Will. His list of museums was acting as a bookmark. A packet of aspirin. A box of matches. ("Whose is that? None of us smoke.")  
  
Scout's address book. Hamilton's camera. A pocket calculator with sterling/dollar exchange rates taped to the back. Paper hankies. A royal blue tank top with a narrow union jack motif recurring along the neckline and hem. It was from Jake's backpack. It was patently a girl's. The other three stared at it.  
  
"I thought Bella might like it" Jake said uncomfortably after a minute.  
  
"I didn't know you were friends." Scout sounded personally offended.  
  
"A bit." Jake wondered where all this tension came from. She half grinned. "I'm trying to get her to teach me to fix my bike."  
  
"Thus doing herself out of work" Will observed mildly.  
  
"Teaching me would be a job in itself."  
  
"How hard is it to change a flat or put the chain back on? You're just looking to spend time with her." Scout looked jealous.  
  
-_ hmm, possessive. Why doesn't he just ask her out?_ - Jake thought.  
  
"Jake has a motorbike" said Hamilton.  
  
"Oh" said Scout flatly. "That's ..very cool. Is Bella impressed?"  
  
Jake's brows drew together. "Not particularly."  
  
"Excuse us a minute." Will pulled Scout as far away as possible and muttered urgently in his ear. Hamilton caught the end of it. "..of your business, and anyway I'm pretty sure Jake's gay."  
  
Hamilton felt it was time to say something unarguable. He picked up Will's Rawley ID card. "This won't be much help."  
  
"Oh, I don't know." Will took it from him and went to the door.  
  
Jake was leaning against the jamb. "I think the hall's empty" she said.  
  
Will nodded, and started to fiddle with the lock. He looked disgruntled when he failed.  
  
"Maybe criminals have higher security sense than Rawley does" said Jake, depressed. "I shouldn't be surprised if they have decent fire walls on their computer, too."  
  
Hamilton tilted his head to one side. "Let me try." He used the attachment on his key ring.  
  
Scout had a whine in his voice when he spoke. "Has, like, everyone in the room got special illicit skills?"  
  
"Not me" Jake made a disclaiming gesture. "We've fallen in with the bad crowd."  
  
Hamilton continued to work on the lock. He almost thought he had it when footsteps sounded from outside. 


	3. secrets, lies

  
  
Will was listening to Scout yelling abuse and threats at their captors, terrified. - _three of us are searching the adults' faces, trying to read their intentions, but Scout.. Does he not get the concept of fear?_ - Will asked himself, and not in an admiring sense.  
  
"-Don't you know who I am?" Scout was bellowing.  
  
**SLAM**, went the door.  
  
After the men had gone, the four picked over the tray of gelid food they'd delivered. Will was the first to speak. "You know, perhaps we should be exercising charm on them."  
  
Scout looked contemptuous. "'Cause they have guns?" he said derisively.  
  
Jake sighed. -_ full on macho pride. How inappropriate _-  
  
Will said "Well, uh. Yeah, that would be the reason."  
  
"Don't you even get angry? Am I the only person here-" Scout searched for a word "-**outraged** by-"  
  
"Don't be a dork Scout" Hamilton interrupted. "We're all angry."  
  
"You're not showing it."  
  
"Maybe it's because I've lived with limitations all my life" Will said. (Scout sighed and shifted impatiently.) "I've learnt fear. You haven't." The parent issues his rich classmates complained about seemed so incredibly insignificant to him. - _So, Hamilton's dad doesn't spend enough time with him. If Brian Krudsky would avoid me, that would be fine by me. The Senator's idea of a penalty is to withdraw Scout's carkeys. None of the other guys get hit.-_  
  
What Will said made no sense to Scout. "And Jake? What's your explanation for him? Because, Jake's as much a rich kid as I am-"  
  
"Hello? Still here.." Jake objected. Now, Will was looking at her far too closely, saying "They threatened Hamilton. That would freak Jake out.." He gave a snort of laughter. "Besides freaking Hamilton himself."  
  
Jake drew breath but Hamilton got in first. "Thanks for the update." He sounded less than pleased. Being that scared was the last thing he wanted to remember.  
  
"Fear isn't something you learn" Scout said.  
  
Hamilton disagreed silently. - _I learnt it this summer _- For months he'd thought he was becoming someone he never intended to be.  
  
"I learnt it when I got mugged" said Jake quietly.  
  
Hamilton's head turned sharply and Scout looked startled and concerned.  
  
"Oh, it was a couple of years ago. But ever since I've been more cautious. I don't feel invulnerable any more."  
  
"I never felt invulnerable" said Will. "Not as long as I can remember."

* * *

:None of them slept that night. Each crouched huddled in some corner of the room until the birds cheeped a dawn chorus. They all felt tired and grubby and anticlimactic. Will wasn't even sure what fresh unpleasantness they had been staying alert for. He looked idly out the window; he had commandeered the wooden chest that served as window seat. Early commuters were setting out. "Hey!" he shouted. "Hey!"  
  
Ham came over to him. "Try breaking the glass."  
  
"I can't get my hand through the grille."  
  
"Something metal and sticklike would be good."  
  
"Like, oh yeah, a **KEY**!" Will wished Hamilton would be a bit more practical. Dork.  
  
Hamilton gave him an unreadable look and handed him something from last night's greasy tray. Will stared at it blankly. "It's a fork."  
  
Jake said "Wrap your hand in something against shards -and kind of shove it at the glass." The suggestion backfired when Scout dived for the top Jake had bought the previous day. 

Over Jake's faint protest "I won't be able to give it to Bella -"

"Cool" said Scout, cheerfully, as he took Bella's tank top and handed it to Will to protect his knuckles. Will concentrated on a dilapidated corner of window frame where the wood was rotten. Pedestrian traffic eased up while he worked; it took almost an hour. The fork bent.  
  
"Cheap cutlery" said Jake.  
  
"This isn't the moment to come over all Julia Child on us. We've broken the glass." Scout was exultant.  
  
But even with the four of them yelling at the outdoors, from four flights up they were drowned out by the rumbling of lorries and cars below. They shouted till they were hoarse.  
  
"Alll right" Will said. "Let's try the written word." He tore a page from his notebook and scribbled busily. He was about to poke it through the window when Hamilton stopped him.  
  
"What? It's a good idea" Scout said.  
  
Hamilton retrieved the paper. "I don't want it mistaken for litter." He smoothed it out and folded it elaborately into a perfect crane.  
  
"Your mom, the art teacher" said Jake, punching him gently. "Let's hope this works."  
  
They watched tensely while the paper spiralled down to the pavement. A dog nosed it. People, however, kept going.  
  
"So. We try again" said Will.  
  
A dozen origami missiles later, and he was losing his temper. "Are they blind to how dirty and messy it is here? This is European squalour; it's not cute and it's not quaint."  
  
"And it's not big, and it's not clever."  
  
Will turned on her, furious. "Don't make jokes about this, Pratt."  
  
Jake rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "It helps me deal." She looked at Will, refusing to apologise. "They'll go through our stuff when they investigate, right?"  
  
"So long as they get us out of here" Scout said "they can go through what they like."  
  
Jake looked worried. "I kind of value my privacy" she said.  
  
Hamilton was puzzled. Jake had vented to him a lot about her mother's indifference. "Your mom will have to get involved" he said.  
  
Jake sighed. "Yeah." She didn't seem to be looking forward to it.

* * *

:

Karen Krudsky hovered anxiously in the living room watching the street. The senator was due any minute. The room was painfully tidy.  
  
"He seemed nice over the phone" she suggested to her husband.  
  
"I'm sure he's a genius at schmoozing the little people. If he has a problem with us he'll close his eyes and think of the electorate."  
  
"He's in the same boat as we are right now." She looked and sounded worn out.  
  
"It's his kid that got taken. My boy was a passenger."  
  
Karen didn't see it made a difference. She hugged her arms in front of her.  
  
"Will shouldn't have been there" he said, low.  
  
Karen melted. "Oh, honey. I know you're upset about our baby. We have to hold on. When Will gets back things are going to be different-"  
  
"He shouldn't have been in Europe" he growled.  
  
Karen fell silent. Anger made Brian unpredictable lately.  
  
"If he'd gone to Edmund High.. But no, that wasn't **good** enough for little Lord Fauntleroy."  
  
"It was an opportunity." There was a studio portrait of Will on top of the television set. She straightened it and checked the surface for dust.  
  
"I blame Rawley."  
  
"The school?" She was surprised.  
  
"They took these kids overseas, right? And failed to supervise them. I've been talking to this no win, no fee lawyer. He says-"  
  
The door rang. It was Senator Calhoun, accompanied by an aide.  
  
The senator was urbane. He wanted to tell them all about the strings he'd been pulling to get everything moving. Karen thanked him - he seemed to expect it -but felt bitter that family connections had to be used to force the extra effort. - four teenage kids, the Calhoun name shouldn't be the issue -  
  
It was no use denying that angle though. Politicians were making speeches, editorials were being printed, journalists were calling the state of Anglo American relations into question if the boys weren't found soon. The media loved it. The Dean had told her that it was even bigger news in England. American investigators were working with the British police. Everything possible was being done, said the Dean.  
  
Her husband loomed alarmingly in the background. Hopefully the Senator was too thick skinned to notice the looks Brian was giving him. The aide was visibly aware, though, and he and Karen tried to move the interview along. They were putting aside the barely touched coffee when a voice called "Mrs Krudsky-"  
  
Bella ran in. "Hey. I thought I'd come by and see how you were holding- oh." Seeing the strangers, she looked ready to turn and go.  
  
"Thanks for knocking" Brian said savagely.  
  
Bella tore her stare away from the Senator to see Mr Krudsky. She fell back a step.  
  
"Now, Brian. You know Bella has free run of this house." Karen threw an arm round the girl and explained "Bella's like a daughter to me." She felt Bella flinch. She thought Will and Bella would make a great couple. Her only problem was, they didn't see it. "This is-"  
  
"Senator Calhoun" Bella said. "Yeah." She swallowed.  
  
Scout's father looked at her, all pink and gold, and extended his hand. "I'm sure I'd remember meeting you."  
  
"I'm Donna Banks' daughter" she said significantly.  
  
He was uncertain what she meant by that, but then Karen cried out "A postcard from London."  
  
"Uh, yeah." Bella returned her attention to Karen.  
  
"Is it from Will?"  
  
"No, Scout sent it. Oh, do you want-" She passed it to Scout's father.  
  
**HEY BELLA. I PROMISED TO WRITE YOU FROM HERE, SO THIS IS IT. FINN IS SUCH A PAIN. IF I SEE ANOTHER ART GALLERY MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE. WILL LOVES IT. IF YOU WERE HERE WE COULD TEASE HIM. THE BORING STUFF WOULD BE MORE FUN. I MISS YOU. LOVE, SCOUT.  
**  
Calhoun took a minute longer than necessary to read the card. Memories were coming back to him, of a lakeside conversation at the regatta.  
  
- _"So there's some crazy girl running round town claiming to be my daughter" I said _- He held the postcard but looked at Bella. "Donna Banks' daughter."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I never knew Donna Banks."  
  
She bit her lip.  
  
Karen was looking at both him and the girl, bewildered. Whoever had heard the rumour, the Krudskys hadn't, he realised, and resolved to keep it that way.  
  
"My son said you were beautiful and smart."  
  
She blushed.  
  
"You were dating each other."  
  
Karen looked enlightened.  
  
"Briefly" said Bella.  
  
She didn't look crazy. He decided to get to the bottom of this. "I'll give you a lift back to-"  
  
"I live at the gas station." She felt like saying "I filled up your tank at the regatta weekend and you never saw me."  
  
When they left the Krudskys he said "Who told you this, this story?"  
  
"My dad."  
  
His face wore a look of Scoutlike confusion.

* * *

Kate was demanding Finn told her everything known about the day the boys were snatched.  
  
"All we have is the stuff from their room."  
  
Steven moved ahead of them, going for the most noticeable document there. It was Will's travel diary.  
  
"That's the great thing about them being minors" Steven said. "They don't have rights to privacy and self determination." He cast a scaly eye over the diary. It was a formidably long text, with topographical poems and a cliff-notes list of dates in red ink, and postcards taped in to illustrate where he'd been. Steven flipped through and looked up at Finn pleadingly. "Please tell me it won't be full of adolescent philosophising."  
  
"Don't make jokes about this" Finn snapped.  
  
"Who's laughing?" Steven returned to the exercise book. - _hmm. The boy's intelligent. I recognise a lot of Finnish quotes. I take it he's mentoring the boy. He has a talent for one to one relationships with children. -  
_  
He found a scribbled draft schedule for that last day and raised his eyebrows. - _I see Mr Krudsky planned to knock off the British Museum in 40 purposeful minutes. One has to be impressed by his ramraid approach to western culture _- "Have the police noted this?" he asked, pointing to the page.  
  
"Yes, but they found no witnesses on the route so far."  
  
"Did Hamilton leave a diary?"  
  
"Ah, no." Finn frowned slightly. He thought Steven should know Hamilton better than that. "There was a lot of unprocessed film in his room."  
  
"Processed now." It was not a question.  
  
Finn handed the photos over.  
  
Pictures of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London from a boat. Calhoun, stymied by a collapsing umbrella. The Pratt and Johnson boys poring over a map. Nelson's Column, taken from halfway down Whitehall. Marcus Brent, perched on one of Landseer's lions, laughing down at the camera. Calhoun slipping a postcard into a red pillarbox. Big Ben. Pratt emerging from a hotel room, bleary of expression and with scruffy bed hair - and another shot taken a moment later, the hair still dreadful and Pratt lunging furiously snarling at the camera. Finn and Krudsky picking over trestle tables of used books in the open air.  
  
One of the snaps included Hamilton. He was involved in some kind of horseplay with the Pratt boy next to some fountains. Steven wasted a good minute trying to identify the place. He thought it was near Speaker's Corner. - I'm putting a lot of effort into distracting myself - he reflected. He looked at the picture again. There was a rainbow caught in the water spray and in the foreground the boys were mock fighting over a scarlet backpack, both laughing. He had considered Pratt to be a solemn introverted child. But he mostly looked at Hamilton. "He's a good boy" he said.  
  
"Yes" Finn said gently.

* * *

_Bored. Bored. Bored. Four ugly green walls, dusty wooden floor, bad plaster rosette on the ceiling. None of it's worth looking at.  
_  
"A room without pictures" said Hamilton. Then he remembered the snap in Scout's wallet. "Oh, wait, you have a photo of that girl from the gas station."  
  
"Bella. Yeah." Scout looked up. Will was out of earshot. - _if Krudsky had his way I'd forget she existed. I can't do that. Just to talk about her; how is that wrong_? -  
  
"She's pretty" Hamilton offered.  
  
"She's beautiful" Scout corrected. He sounded overly fervent.  
  
Hamilton was puzzled. Scout was obviously into this girl, so.. "Why don't you ask her out? She's a girl, she likes you.."  
  
"How do you know she likes me?"  
  
"Jake said" Hamilton stated simply.  
  
Scout indulged in a moment's brooding over how well Jake knew Bella. "I can't be with Bella." He couldn't explain. - _as Bella would say, the whole thing is so Jerry Springer _-  
  
It was clear to Hamilton that he was eaten up by this. "You should go for it" he said.  
  
"Easy for you to say. You've dated every girl in Rawley." - _Hamilton, of the famously short attention span. If he makes a move on Bella, I'll .. She'd see through him. Right? _-  
  
"Hardly all of them." Hamilton seemed to be thinking about something else.  
  
- _no. He hasn't dated Bella. Thank God. She deserves better _- "You don't understand what it's like to want someone and have to stop yourself" Scout accused.  
  
Hamilton's face turned back to him, from where he had been watching Will and Jake, and he said "When you say you can't be with Bella. Is that, like, a reputation thing?"  
  
"Bella?" Will echoed, and he turned his all-too-familiar shocked&disappointed expression on Scout.  
  
"It would be wrong" Scout mumbled, obviously uncomfortable.  
  
Jake tried to change the subject. "I was just congratulating Will that neither of us have chicks worrying about us." She gave Hamilton a sharp look. "Your chicks can form a support group." She assumed a ridiculously squeaky girl voice "Hi. My name is Sindy and I dated Munchie for three days in July."  
  
"Munchie?" Will and Scout hooted.  
  
Hamilton was annoyed. "Why don't you have a girl waiting for you?"  
  
"Uh, I think Will is concentrating on his work-"  
  
"You, Jake. Why don't you?"  
  
Will's shoulders hunched and his brow furrowed. His instinct was to leave. Scout, on the other hand, looked fascinated.  
  
"Unlucky in love or something" Jake said flatly.  
  
"Or something. What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Is this the argument about my dating life? Because we've had this fight a month ago."  
  
"What dating life? You don't have a dating life."  
  
"Yeah, and that fact is none of your freaking business. Try sticking with someone for more than twelve hours Ham. Maybe you can set up as an advice columnist then."  
  
"Oh. **My** dating life is up for discussion."  
  
"Oh for godsake" Jake muttered to herself.  
  
"That fight a month ago" Hamilton said. He had forgotten their audience totally. "I was asking for a reason-"  
  
"Stop." Jake flicked her eyes to Will and Scout who were turning from Ham to Jake and back again to Ham as if they were at a tennis match. "I don't need to discuss this in public" she said, and stomped off to the toilet.  
  
Ham scowled at the other two.  
  
"What. Happened." Scout was agog.  
  
"You don't need to know."  
  
"You are so wrong about that."  
  
Will chipped in. "You think we're prurient."  
  
The scowl didn't abate.  
  
"We're just interested in people."  
  
The toilet door opened briefly. "So is the National Enquirer" yelled Jake and slammed it again. 


	4. shocked dean

Notes: 1st, no, I do not own the rights to this.

2nd, when I did this I didn't know Will's mum's name, so I called her Karen (because her face reminded me of a Karen I know). Later, someone at forums4fans - sorry, can't remember who - told me she was Susan. Should have edited that..

* * *

Jake dreamt. It was darker than real life ever was, lightless as black velvet. She decided she was underground. It didn't occur to her to cry out; she knew she was alone. Fear built up in her, she tried to move, and realized something heavy was weighing her down. - _this is a subway accident. Something's fallen on top of me _- She woke kicking and flailing.  
  
She woke Hamilton too. He was lying on his belly an inch away with his face smeared into the mattress. "Jake?" he mumbled.  
  
"Sorry, sorry." Her eyes were still wild. "Bad dream."  
  
"Wha'?" barely awake himself.  
  
"I was pinned down." Abruptly, Jake raised her head. Hamilton had an arm and a leg thrown over her body. Her head dropped with a thump.  
  
"Warmth" he said awkwardly, rolling away.  
  
"Um. Yeah." Jake directed her gaze at the ceiling. "Are the guys awake?"  
  
Hamilton twisted to check. "Dead to the world. Worried about your rep?" He kept his voice down so as not to wake the others, but it came out harsh. At the beginning of summer session, they had been so close but after the cotillion Hamilton had withdrawn. They still hung out but the entire days of one on one were over.  
  
"Oh? What is my reputation?" Jake challenged. - _he was the one who cooled off on me. He has no right to act injured -  
_  
Hamilton sighed resentfully. He hated being put on the spot. "You know."  
  
Jake drawled "People don't know their own reputation. That's how it works."  
  
Hamilton shifted, not meeting her eyes. "They say you're not interested in girls" he said.  
  
"Really."  
  
-_ shit, Jake. Stop playing games with me - _"You weren't interested in Lena," accusingly.  
  
"Oh. Wow, I must be gay."  
  
He grimaced at Jake's sarcasm. "You asked me to the Cotillion."  
  
"I said we could go stag together. Look, it's been two months. Are you still fixated on that?"  
  
"No!"  
  
- _he's lying _- "I'm just not a slave to my hormones like the rest of you guys." - _Ham. Stop freaking round me -  
_  
"You're saying you're not into dating or kissing-"  
  
Jake turned her head to look at him by the orange glow from the street. Their eyes locked and held. Jake felt as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the room.  
  
"- I don't buy that" he concluded.  
  
"You think too much about emotions." - _there. That's a statement straight from the GuyManual. How convincing am I? _- The thought depressed her. "If I'd met you in different circumstances.."  
  
"What?"  
  
- _did I say that aloud? Shit _- Jake glanced involuntarily at the exit.  
  
"Surprise, it's still locked. Finish what you're saying."  
  
Jake scrambled up and over to the window seat. It was draughty there. She huddled in a fetal ball to conserve heat. "Get some rest Hamilton."  
  
"For another tiring day of being locked up?" He did sarcasm too.  
  
"We should be planning an escape. Not wallowing in the country and western song that is my life."  
  
"While we are stuck here, I can ask you without you running out on me."  
  
"Ask me..? Oh, god. I told you. I'm in love. Back in New York."  
  
He listened to Scout and Will for a minute. Deep, even breathing. He got up and went to the window to stand over Jake. "Girl or boy?"  
  
"My sexuality is none of your freaking business."  
  
"It is if you're into me."  
  
Jake stared up at him, her mouth open. She couldn't read his face. "Would it help if I recited the list of ways Hamilton is so annoying I can't possibly find him hot. It gets me through bad days-" She shut her eyes in panic. _- I didn't say that. I didn't say that out loud. No_ - "I'm straight" she said sullenly.  
  
The seat creaked when Hamilton dropped onto the empty end. "Straight. But you keep watching this guy in class. I know that one. It's a screwed up situation."  
  
Jake forced herself to look at him again. - _everything's coming out soon. The police and our parents are onto everything by now. I should have the guts to tell him myself _- "I'm a girl."  
  
Hamilton's eyebrows drew together. He'd thought he was in denial but Jake.. "You're a girl born in a boy's body?" He tried for non judgemental but came up with dubious. -_ I need to react right. The thing I love about Jake is, I can tell him anything. I want him to be able to say anything to me. Okay. It's brave of him to be this honest. What does this mean. I still want him_.. - All of this flashed through his mind before the worrying thought occurred - _if he has a problem with his own male body how's he going to be with mine? And, oh god, how am I going to make him deal with this? -  
_  
"No!" -_ he thinks I'm crazy _- "I'm-"  
  
A loud yawn drowned her out. Will was surfacing. His eyes were scrunched shut while he stretched.  
  
- _we're not alone anymore_ - "Later" Jake said hurriedly.  
  
Before Will could open his eyes Hamilton leaned in and kissed Jake hard on the mouth. They barely got away with it. "Been awake long?" Will asked, climbing to his feet and blinking.

* * *

Hamilton spent most of the day thinking about the implications of Jake's gender issues.  
  
- _So, what the fuck does that mean? I don't know anything about this kind of thing and it's not like I can start running keyword:transsexual through Ask Jeeves. I've barely got my head round the gay thing -  
_  
It didn't seem fair. He was supposed to be getting to the good bits now. He'd taken the most terrifying risk; he'd kissed Jake, and it had been, well, actually it had been hasty and inadequate. He wanted more, and more in line with his daydreams. - _**months**, building to this -_ He thought how the kiss felt.  
  
- _I can deal. We can deal. I'm on track with this. It's going to work _-  
  
He looked around. He wanted to be away from people while he worked this through in his head, like on those summer nights by the lakeshore. The man in the moon didn't care what facial statement he wore, and, good, Will and Scout hadn't noticed him here and now.  
  
_- Does Jake want operations to change himself? _- he thought incredulously. That was wrong. Not wrong-wrong, but wrong for Jake. Jake had such a strong sense of identity. -_ I don't want Jake any different. I never thought Jake wanted to Be different. How can I have misread something as major as this? Does he want to cross dress? _- He tried - unsuccessfully - to picture Jake in skirts like a model in a photo shoot.  
  
- _If he could "pass" that would make it easier to go on public dates_ - He felt a wave of shame. - _God. I'm such a sheep, such a conformist.. Except, I knew I was a coward when I spent the summer forcing myself to date girls who bored me and made me nervous. What would it be like, dating someone I want to talk to? I can't get enough of Jake's company, and touching as well. I know he wants me -  
_  
He caught Jake's eye.She was looking stressed on a level only he could see. She had been barely holding it together since Will woke up and interrupted them.  
  
Will and Scout noticed nothing until Hamilton drifted over and nonchalantly massaged Jake's neck and shoulders. - _silky soft skin over hard muscle. On the other side of layers of sweatshirts, unfortunately. God his tendons are unyielding. I may as well be massaging one of the statues around town _- She jerked away from him.  
  
"Stay. You're all wound up with tension. Let me help."  
  
"I don't **need** help." She used her gruffest voice.  
  
Having resolved to throw his reputation to the wind for love, Hamilton did not immediately realise that Jake was clinging to hers. Besides, his take on Jake's reputation easily embraced neck rubs. He'd been the aggressively rampant girl chaser, and, okay, sublimating, but here he was giving up that status and Jake could at least be grateful. Grateful? All right, impressed then. People were going to react to him creepily and talk weird behind his back, and he was doing it for Jake..  
  
Jake was staring at him, scared and angry. He'd always been confident that he could totally read Jake, but that belief had sprung a leak and right now he felt like he was missing something important.  
  
"Dudes, can you excuse us for a minute?" she asked Will and Scout, not taking her eyes off Hamilton.  
  
"Uh, sure." "Yeah, sure." They traded confused looks and Jake and Hamilton withdrew to the toilet.

* * *

: 

Steven Fleming had told Mrs Krudsky (who was a very good listener) about the media frenzy in the UK, but there were aspects of the case he didn't want to discuss by phone. Actually, he didn't want to discuss them at all.  
  
His first morning in England, Steven strode into the police station, feeling confident that however uncomfortable his private feelings might be, he could at least deal with the officials smoothly. He knew the police in New Rawley.. and the fire department.. and the emergency plumbers. Some of his students could be quite annoying. It was a longstanding joke between him and Kate that, while he was deeply committed to the welfare of children in the abstract, actual specimens exasperated him. It didn't seem to be a joke they would be sharing again anytime soon.  
  
Kate was unravelling badly. Some fool had covered a table in the lobby with the day's papers, and when he and Finn came down, Kate was flipping through the tabloids. Many had frontpage pictures of Kate at the airport, crying, in closeup. The Dean scanned some of the text and quickly wished he hadn't. They were boosting their circulation with pessimistic and gruesome speculations. Finn pressed a Guardian on her instead. It was taking the soothing, impersonal, foreign relations angle.  
  
"There, Kate" the Dean said warily.  
  
She looked daggers at him. "I can't face the detectives" she said.  
  
"We have an appointment." He reminded himself forcibly that it was a healthy thing for Kate to be in touch with her emotional needs.  
  
Finn laid a hand on Kate's arm. "I'll stay with her" he said.  
  
Steven kept the appointment. Here were a team of skilled professionals bringing the weight of years of experience to bear on the situation. He was going to help as much as he damn well could, and he was not going to mess them about be being late or absent from a planned meeting, and this thing was going to be fucking dealt with.  
  
He was such an anglophile. He'd spent years watching PBS. He could give Inspector Morse pointers on procedure. How hard could this be? He followed a junior constable through a maze of departments, unresponsive to the soothing remarks of the nice young man the Embassy had sent to handhold him through this.  
  
When the constable got him to his destination, the room fell silent as he entered. "Mr Fleming?"  
  
He put out his hand, but the policeman was still talking and didn't take it. Apparently they weren't going to be wasting time on the niceties here.  
  
"-We've discovered irregularities in the Pratt passport. It's a fraud."  
  
Taken by surprise yet again, Steven heard himself say numbly "You're supposed to be investigating the other guys."  
  
A younger officer spoke. "How did Pratt get the passport?"  
  
"Ahh." Steven wished he had a file of records to search. It would give him something to do with his hands. He wouldn't need the file for information. He had revised every bit of data about the run up to this disaster, over and over. There shouldn't be any more surprises, damnit. "The school applied on his behalf, as we did for Krudsky, Brent, and a few others" he said slowly. "A responsible professional can testify to someone's identity."  
  
The junior officer achieved a magnificently scathing look.  
  
Steven rallied. "In what way fraudulent?"  
  
"Miss Pratt is a skilled computer hacker."  
  
"His I.T. tutor always .. **Miss** Pratt?"  
  
The chief inspector evidently felt enough fun had been had. "Mr Sopwith." To Steven, he explained "Monica Pratt has a daughter, not a son. Jacqueline."  
  
- _and I thought I knew it all. Memorised the inactive email address, the unresponsive voicemail. The child must've set those up. For the last couple of days Monica Pratt's agent has been fobbing me off like a crazy ..fan. He thinks I'm a fan. Of course, my message "it's about Jake" rang no bells. Wretched boy. Girl. No wonder whenever I encountered him he looked furtive. She. Damn - _"How did-" Steven's gaze fell on a copy of Hello! magazine "- oh, no."  
  
"Err."  
  
"It's nice to know you use the most sophisticated research methods." Steven had climbed back to the high moral ground and he liked it up there.  
  
"I got to claim this week's copy on expenses" said Sopwith, not noticeably crushed.  
  
"We found out through other sources as well" said the senior man, who was embarrassed enough for both of them. "Ah, we've set up an appointment with Ms Pratt. Do you wish to be present? She may have questions you can answer."  
  
"When this is over we're going to want to talk to Miss Pratt about the passport issue" said Mr Bradley from the embassy.  
  
- _you're going to have to wait in line. She's crapped all over my professional reputation for starters. Further, the police don't look happy with her_ - Steven thought, looking at the chief inspector. "She's a minor." He thought about that, then said "She is the age I think?"  
  
"She only changed her sex" Sopwith confirmed. "Do you know why?" He hadn't much hope the Dean would know.  
  
The Dean was pacing, ignoring him. "I don't see how this ties in with the kidnapping case."  
  
"No." Sopwith agreed. "We think it's unrelated and just emerged fortuitously."  
  
- _fortuitously_ - The Dean winced. "Rawley is going to look so stupid" he muttered. More loudly, "What are the chances of-" He gestured significantly.  
  
"Hushing it up?" the chief inspector interpreted. "Well, there's a lot of media attention."  
  
The Dean winced some more. So far, the media had four photogenic (but un-named, thank Goodness, Steven thought) youngsters from a privileged/glamourous background, incarcerated in a country which valued its excellent foreign relations with the USA, but which was failing to resolve this case quickly enough to satisfy the American press. The Calhoun angle was making this a problem for politicians, and the journalists were amplifying that problem. Throw the Jake/Jacqueline thing in, and the newsprint might spontaneously combust. The Dean thanked God that they had withheld the identities of the three non-Calhoun children until all the parents had been contacted.

* * *

FROM:

TO:

HEY BELLA. THE BAY IS CRAWLING WITH REPORTERS BECAUSE OF THE CALHOUNS' SUMMER PLACE HERE. THEY'RE ALL TRYING TO GET LITTLE PERSONAL STORIES ABOUT SCOUT. GHOULS. THIS CIRCUS IS SO WEIRD FROM YOUR ANGLE I SUPPOSE. I'M SO SO SCARED FOR HIM. I'VE KNOWN HIM FOR AS LONG AS I'VE BEEN COMING HERE. NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHO THE OTHER 3 GUYS WITH HIM ARE. IS IT PEOPLE I'VE MET? PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW. IF I KNEW MORE, THIS WOULD FEEL MORE CONTROLLABLE.  
  
EMAIL ME BACK WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE. HOW IS SEAN?  
  
LOVE, PAIGE.

* * *

  
  
"I don't have enough data to think constructively about this Pratt business" the Dean said logically. He had scarcely registered the chief inspector's departure.  
  
"Our meeting with Ms Pratt is scheduled for 5pm this evening. Please unearth what you can by then" Sopwith suggested none too respectfully. He was annoyed by the looseness of Rawley supervision; in fact, he'd promised himself a therapeutic rant at Mr Finn. Being mean to Mr Fleming would be a substitute.  
  
Steven nodded, abstracted. "Have any witnesses come forward, from the route indicated in Krudsky's diary?"  
  
Sopwith shook his head. "You have to realise, it's a busy area, and the museums in question have a high footfall. The museum of London staff recall them as being on the doorstep at 10am, but our latest fix on them is at Sir John Soanes' ..it's small, voluntary, and, best of all, has a visitor's book to sign."  
  
Steven nodded. "Then they went to the British Museum."  
  
Sopwith said "That was the plan. The ransom demand was emailed from a 24hour internet cafe at 9.24 GMT. Not that anyone can help, there" he added distastefully. "Full of vagrants and petty criminals. And the email address was hotmail with a false address given."  
  
"Senator Calhoun said they haven't said yet how it's to be delivered."  
  
"Mmmm."  
  
: 


	5. mummie darling

Disclaimer: not mine.

* * *

:

Jake leaned back against the door, pursing her lips as she flicked a glance round the cramped room. The clothes she and Will had washed with hand soap were still dripping into puddles around the basin. A bathroom festooned with soggy smalls wasn't her first choice of private places, but for one thing, at least they were alone, and for another, she was planning to yell at Hamilton.  
  
"We need to talk."  
  
Hamilton took a step back. "What?"  
  
"All right. What's going on? Do you want to break my cover?"  
  
"What? You're an FBI agent as well as everything else?" he cracked defensively.  
  
"I should never have trusted you" she said, losing hope. - _face the facts _- she told herself. -_ I should have stayed with friendship. One sketchy moment and now I'm in girlfriend territory. And I've had a front seat view of how Ham treats them -  
_  
"Of course you can trust me. We're best friends. We'll always be best friends."  
  
"Always" she said flatly. "Ham, when have you stayed with anyone longer than a weekend?"  
  
"I've stayed with you." He moved up close to nuzzle her temple.  
  
Jake tried to be tough and unaffected. "Well you're stuck with me for now. Unless Will or Scout are open to suggestions, and I don't think-"  
  
"Stop it. Shut up Jake." She was hurting him.  
  
She moved past him to test the dampness of the laundry with a fingertip. -_ I've got to stay in touch with reality. The crash will hurt less if I don't get my hopes -  
_  
Hamilton stared at her back. "You think this is some prison bitch cliche?" he said incredulously. "I'm not into you as a substitute for a real girl-"  
  
"I **AM** a real girl" Jake snarled.  
  
"HUngH?" in a tone worthy of Scooby Doo - or Scout.  
  
She was replaying what they'd said in her head. "I told you I'm a girl."  
  
"Yes. And I accept that. Am I the first person you've told?" Because, he couldn't help noticing how Jake was repeating himself on the subject.  
  
They stared at each other for a good minute, both reaching out, each aware that they were failing to connect. Still speechless, Jake began wrenching her top off.  
  
"Jake you don't have to - Jake." Hamilton shoved his fringe out of his eyes.. "Jake ..you've got a **chest**."  
  
"I'm a girl" said Jake, as if the point needed reinforcing. She reminded herself that her bra was as good a cover up as a bikini top. It was an effort to keep her hands from screening her breasts, especially with Hamilton staring so intently. She expected his eyes to burn through the fabric.  
  
He dragged his attention back to her face. "Why?"  
  
Jake sucked in a deep breath. "Remember how I told you I kept changing schools to get my mom's attention?" She paused, and when he nodded, said wryly "Coming to Rawley Boys was kind of an extension of that."  
  
"She never noticed, did she."  
  
-_ I don't want your pity _- "Nope. But I settled anyway." She forced a smile. It touched Hamilton.  
  
"Because of me."  
  
"Because of me" she said sharply. "Because I love crew, and tag football, and decent science teaching. And, yeah, friendships. Scout, Will, Bella ..you."  
  
"Can you call us friends? You've been lying to us all this time."  
  
"Not about the important stuff. My name's Jacqueline, not Jake. But I believe the same things, I enjoy the same things, I'm the same person you knew."  
  
"I don't think I ever knew you." He sounded cold, maybe angry.  
  
Jake stooped to pick up her sweatshirt and made a big performance of pulling the sleeves right side out. "You know me better than anyone else ever did," she mumbled.  
  
"Why didn't you trust me?" This wasn't anger (Jake was still desperately reading his tone of voice). It might be bewilderment. Jake darted a look to try and read his face.  
  
"I was afraid." She blinked rapidly. "You'd think I was a freak or weird or creepy or something."  
  
He turned and left the room.  
  
"Don't tell-" she blurted. Hastily pulling her top back on, she followed.  
  
Jake and Hamilton emerged from the bathroom at the same time but not exactly together. She walked off by herself and started doing press-ups fast. Hamilton raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and went over to Will and Scout.  
  
"How's it going?" Scout wondered what all that had been about with Jake and Hamilton.  
  
"Life is weird."  
  
Will smiled faintly. "That's my line." He was sitting by the hole in the window. If he held his face just so he could feel the cool breeze, and maybe catch some rain splatters on his face. He looked outside again, feeling claustrophobic. "Opalescent grey" he said.  
  
Hamilton studied the sky in his turn. It reminded him of a pigeon's plumage, grey, yes, but with flushes of rose and lilac.  
  
Scout cut through the meteorology talk. "So, uh, what's up with you and Jake?"  
  
"Nothing. Why would anything be up? We're in a locked room, nothing's happening."  
  
"Oh, ok." Scout threw Will a "weird, huh" look.  
  
"When I was a little kid" said Will "I used to sneak out of my room during my folks' fights, and go sit in the yard. Feel the night breeze on my face, believe there was a place for me somewhere." He caught the look on Hamilton's face. "Not as John Boy Walton as you thought? My dad isn't a Walton."  
  
A police siren wailed past them underneath. They eyed the car sourly, and Will went to make yet another attempt on the lock.

* * *

"Jake's a girl?" Finn couldn't get past that point.  
  
"Yes" said the Dean, his teeth gritted. Finn had repeated himself three times now.  
  
Finn looked at the Dean curiously. "You don't seem very angry." He'd always thought the man was bloodless.  
  
"Angry?" said the Dean as if it was a new concept. "I'm **furious**."  
  
"Do you suppose Munchie knew?" Kate wondered.  
  
"Why should he?"  
  
"He's close friends with Jake."  
  
"Is he? But he doesn't know" Steven said confidently. "If he'd found out he'd have come straight to us. That's how we taught him."  
  
"Uh, yeah" said Finn, but he permitted himself a dubious expression. Steven would never notice.  
  
"I feel sorry for those rich brats sometimes" Steven said expansively "shipped off out of their parent's hair. You know, I think parents should need a licence to practice-"  
  
Kate and Finn did know. They'd heard this speech before.  
  
"- but our Hamilton, we've kept him close and he's never been deprived of love and attention."  
  
"Shouldn't we be talking about Jake now?" suggested Finn.  
  
"I've sent for his - her - school records" said Steven. "What are your impressions?"  
  
"Very bright, especially in the sciences. In IT-"  
  
Steven nodded. "Mr Rosen spoke to me about her talent."  
  
Now that Finn thought about Jake, he found her more elusive than Will or Scout. "Hates speaking up in class. Kind of standoffish. I'd say she's been hurt."  
  
"Hurt?" The Dean latched onto the word.  
  
"Emotionally."  
  
"Oh, emotionally." The Dean dismissed it. "She's a liar. Of course she'll have trust issues."  
  
"We don't know why she did this" said Kate. "Maybe we'll find out when you meet Monica Pratt."

* * *

Steven met up at the theatre with a quieter, tenser Sopwith. "Ms Pratt knows we're coming?" he confirmed.  
  
"Yes, but we give the bad news in person." Sopwith looked glum. "Really, this is stupidly late to be contacting a parent, but we had trouble tracing her, and then her agent is very protective-"  
  
Steven nodded feelingly at that last.  
  
"-I don't understand why Ms Pratt hasn't been onto you though. Hasn't she noticed an absence of communications from her daughter?"  
  
"She might not know Jake's at Rawley."  
  
"It's not hard to work out. Her money's going in your account. Excuse me-" (aside to a grumpy looking woman on the stage door) "-We're here to see Monica Pratt."  
  
"Good luck to you" said the woman.  
  
"Er, it's about her daughter" said Steven, anxious to make it clear that he was not a show business person.  
  
Sopwith showed his id, which got the woman off her bottom and leading them through a maze of cramped and grimy corridors. "She has a child? It's hard to imagine. No, wait, I can imagine it. She ate most of the litter at birth to refresh herself but this one crawled away." The woman indicated a dressing room door and left them to it.  
  
"I'm not a superstitious man" said Steven before they knocked.  
  
"-but?"  
  
"This isn't generally how a constructive parent/teacher meeting opens."  
  
Sopwith was surprised into a laugh. "We just stepped in some office politics. Don't worry about it."  
  
Ms Pratt greeted them smoothly. Sopwith detected a slight edge of confusion as to what they were here about.  
  
"I'm with the metropolitan police" he explained. "I'm afraid I have bad news."  
  
"Is it about those parking tickets? Because, you know, there was a really good reason-"  
  
"I'm a detective inspector with the metropolitan police."  
  
Monica stepped back from Sopwith and leaned on her dressing table in a graceful, elegant gesture. This made a packet of rizlas and a brown herbal lump sweep over the edge to the floor. Troubled, Steven said "It's about your daughter."  
  
"Who are you?" she wanted to know.  
  
"I'm the dean of her school."  
  
"She's not still in that convent?" she said.  
  
"You sent Jake to a convent?"  
  
"It was a very classy convent. I thought it would-" Monica hesitated "-sort her out. She's a really awkward, emotionally grasping, girl. I haven't the time for it. You know, boarding school, peer group, professional supervision.."  
  
"It didn't sort her out" Sopwith said frankly.  
  
"Wait a minute." Monica wasn't listening. "I think my accountant said she'd relocated."  
  
"She relocated to my school" Steven said.  
  
"Who are you again?"  
  
"The dean of Rawley **boys** academy."  
  
After a startled moment, Monica burst out laughing. "Oh, I keep telling her to find herself a boy. Is that where she is now?"  
  
"Well, no. Do you read the papers?"  
  
"I read the arts section." Monica lit a cigarette.  
  
"On Thursday night, the son of Senator Calhoun was snatched for ransom, along with three of his classmates."  
  
Monica dropped her cigarette in a glass of water. "And?" she said harshly. She was going to drag it out of him word by word.  
  
"One of the classmates was Jake Pratt." Steven spoke as gently as he could. He hated this.  
  
"Back up. Are you saying my daughter's locked in a room someplace with three horny teenage guys?"  
  
"In their defence, they think she's a horny teenage guy" said Steven, caught off guard. He added "None of them are going to pounce on her."  
  
Monica fiddled compulsively with the makeup on the table. She was staring into space. "Do the - what was it, Callahans? - need help with the ransom? (god, the amount that girl's cost me, first and last)"  
  
Sopwith cut this off. "No. We're confident of locating them via computer traces and good, solid police work. We could even do it without the help of the nice men the Embassy insisted on sending."  
  
Steven started a sidelong look, then masked it.  
  
"This is fraud" said Monica, thinking it through. "How much trouble is Jacqueline in?"  
  
"Apparently the dean can sue her" said Sopwith with the awful candour Steven associated with him.  
  
"My Stupid little bitch" Monica muttered.

* * *

Jake staked a claim to the bathroom for the next hour to wash up before bed. Hamilton followed. She was staring mindlessly at a discoloured stain on the ceiling when he tapped on the door and followed her. "Oh, feel free to barge right in."  
  
"We need to talk."  
  
"I was about to -" she looked at him sidelong. "Are you still mad at me?"  
  
He backed her against the basin and kissed her. "Of course I'm mad at you."  
  
"I dunno; I'm getting mixed signals here."  
  
He pushed her away enough for her to get the benefit of an exasperated look.  
  
"You were so angry" she said.  
  
"I was embarrassed. How did I not know? You're good, you fooled everybody. But it's not like I wasn't paying attention. God, I was paying attention." His eyes swept over her. Their blueness and intensity of expression made her gut twist.  
  
She slid her arms around him and kissed the lips she'd been staring at for weeks. "You're all stubbly." She moved away from his raspy chin.  
  
"You're not." Ham cupped her neck to pull her back, his fingertips stroking the nape. Her skin was soft, warm, and damp. He brushed his lips along the perfectly smooth sleek line of her jaw.  
  
"Oh, hell. Facial hair, I haven't got any. Even Will is getting bristles now. (Will the guys notice?)"  
  
"I don't get why you're still stressing over this. When we get out, everyone'll know."  
  
"Because you'll tell them" she panicked.  
  
"Because they'll know. Our parents, police, teachers. It's out of our hands. By the time they come and get us-"  
  
"By the time they come to get us. I wish I was gone. Just run. I could hire a bike. I could go for months. I speak French, Spanish. I could go-"  
  
"Where would that leave me?" He felt left out of her dreams.  
  
Her most dazzling smile flashed out. "On the bitchpad."  
  
"Camere baby ..You've got to face them all sometime."  
  
"They're not going to let me come back to Rawley."  
  
"Maybe Dad can be persuaded" he said.  
  
Jake looked doubtful. She'd heard him vent a ton about how the Dean was never interested in what he said.  
  
"My mom can persuade him."  
  
Jake wasn't so sure; she thought Mrs Fleming would be angry too.  
  
"I can talk my mom into anything." Hamilton was confident. 


	6. Bella has 2 dads

disclaimer: not mine, copyright belongs to a big American company.

* * *

John Calhoun hadn't bothered to establish a rapport with the Krudskys. He didn't care for Brian, and Karen struck him as completely in her husband's shadow. She kept looking at Brian's face before she spoke.  
  
But now, he was in the car with this girl, and he wanted her trust. She gave directions to his driver then sat back, fiddling compulsively with a silver chain bracelet.  
  
"If you were my daughter I'd tell you how irritating that is."  
  
She turned a steady gaze on him. "If. But you think I'm not."  
  
"There have been false claims before."  
  
"You've slept around enough to have to take them seriously?" How could she say that so coolly and wide-eyed? She was sitting in the sunshine, talking about sex, looking about 12, looking like Lolita. And why should John Calhoun take a verbal spanking from a baby blue collar? - _how did my generation spawn these sanctimonious brats? _- and he said smoothly "I'm sure you're not anticipating some sort of benefit-"  
  
"Benefit. I met this incredible, romantic, sweet guy. We just - it was beautiful. And, next thing, my Dad is telling us to stay apart. It's not a benefit, Senator."  
  
The car was pulling up at their destination. John read the sign: **Charlie's Gas & Tow**. "You're not interested in the Calhoun money" he said sceptically.  
  
"I'm interested in Scout" she said. "And I'm not allowed to be."  
  
John sighed. "He's not your brother. I want to talk to your dad and find out how this story started."

* * *

:  
  
"-so where is Donna?" John Calhoun wanted to know.  
  
"I have no idea. You are aware that this is personal and uncomfortable stuff for us?"  
  
"It's personal and uncomfortable for me to be accused of being someone's father when I'm not."  
  
"She lives in Carson. I have the address."  
  
"What? Bella, are you in contact with her?" Charlie sounded betrayed, then he added - with an obvious view to parenting textbooks - "I mean, of course, she's your mom, and of course you - have you been seeing her?"  
  
"No! She sent me a birthday present. Scout tore her address off the parcel."  
  
"Why?" asked John.  
  
"He wanted me to go see her. He said, I'd resolve a whole bunch of issues." Bella huffed out a sigh. "I said, he was only interested in the parentage thing. We argued about it a lot."  
  
"That boy's too controlling" said Charlie. "Aside from the brother thing."  
  
"He's not her brother" said the Senator, ignored.  
  
"I think the arrogance is from his background" Bella was conceding. "But daddy, he's really sweet."  
  
"Scout is not arrogant and controlling," Scout's father protested, unheeded. John didn't recognise his naive loving son in this. Besides, how could they bear to criticise him while he was god-knew-where?  
  
"Isn't Sean really sweet too?" Charlie was almost pleading with Bella.  
  
"Oh, daddy."  
  
"Mixing with Rawley types can only lead to trouble." It was an article of faith for Charlie.  
  
"Will's a Rawley type now daddy."  
  
"Huh."  
  
"And Jake? Jake's a friend of mine too."  
  
"The boy with the motorcycle?"  
  
"Yes, that's Jake."  
  
"Isn't he one of the missing boys?" asked John. He'd met Will once, but he didn't know the others.  
  
"He's best friends with Hamilton."  
  
"Hamilton" said Charlie disapprovingly. "He's the one who dates every girl in this town and then breaks her heart." He glared warningly at Bella, who looked un-phased.  
  
"You're very aware of the town gossip" said John, amused.  
  
"I have two little girls to worry about."  
  
"Scout and Will and Jake all keep steering me away from meeting Hamilton" said Bella calmly.  
  
"And these are friends of Scout's" said John, trying to put it together.  
  
"Willie Krudsky's his best friend."  
  
"Scout talks a lot about him."  
  
"He's so smart" Bella boasted.  
  
"I hope the Rawley thing works out for him" Charlie said seriously.  
  
The Senator was surprised. "I thought you hated Rawley."  
  
"Will needs to get out of this town."  
  
Bella said "His dad hits him."  
  
"Bella!" Charlie said sharply. "We don't know that."  
  
"He's been in hospital, all right?" Bella looked stubborn. "Someone should do something."  
  
The Senator had a sinking feeling that the disturbingly self willed Bella had plans for him regardless of whether DNA linked them.

* * *

:  
  
The young man from the Embassy was anxious to be supportive. He asked how today's meeting with the police had gone.  
  
"It was a waste of time" Steven said roundly.  
  
"Don't say that" said Kate, turning away from him. She explained to Mr Bradley that the Met had brought in a psychologist who specialised in criminal profiling.  
  
"What's next? Psychics?" Steven knew he was being obnoxious but he was tired and losing hope.  
  
Kate doggedly continued to tell the young man about the profiler. Steven tried to listen.  
  
- _she prides herself on telling a good story ..not accurate, be it noted, but good _- "How did you notice all this detail?" he asked more politely, adding "I was mesmerised by the steel bolt through his skull."  
  
"It was an eyebrow piercing Steven."  
  
"Well I don't know how he expects to be taken seriously as a professional-" he broke off in the middle of his stale rant.  
  
Kate was hunched in the corner of a big armchair. - _if one of the dogs was here it would go up and give her a nuzzle _- With a stranger present, Steven didn't feel up to public cuddling. "I'm sure he's good at his job" he said awkwardly.

* * *

:  
:- _Jake's _- Will searched for a way to phrase it to himself. - _Jake's hovering _- He had noticed Jake's discomfort the first night of sleeping together, but Jake and Hamilton were actually even more awkward now. - _and I wouldn't have thought that possible. It's almost funny, the way they keep staring at each other when they think noone will notice. I'm starting to think Hamilton wants Jake too -  
_  
"You're chewing your lip again" Hamilton told Jake.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Relax" said Scout, sitting up squinting and flopping back down again. Jake looked at him, an object lesson in relaxation, and lay on the extreme edge of the mattress, a perceptible no-go zone around her.  
  
- _they should talk to each other _- Will thought. - _There's so much tension going on there. I mean, Hamilton's crap at English class, but he must be able to string a few sentences together. He's negotiated all those girlfriends this summer. I suppose his best friend having a crush on him is a different kind of deal -  
_  
Hamilton inched into Jake's personal space.  
  
- _they always interact so physically_ - Will thought. - _all that staring, all the not accidental touching. Can't they use words? Words aren't so complicated _-  
  
"Ow" Jake yelped.  
  
_- way to sound like a girl, Pratt_ - Will thought.  
  
"..digging into me" Jake was whispering.  
  
"Well it's more uncomfortable for me" Hamilton muttered.  
  
"Can't you just take whatever it is out of your pocket?"  
  
"Shut up Jake" he hissed. "(It's not an option.)"  
  
Short, puzzled silence, followed by long, appalled silence.  
  
-_ for some reason I don't feel threatened or scandalised like I would've expected _- Will thought. -_ I've been walled up with these guys for days now and they're okay people. I suppose I'm pretty much prepared to accept any quirks they throw at me. Besides, Jake isn't a surprise. Ham, though .. Does it make me a bad person that I find this freaking hilarious? _- He rolled over to get the orange streetlight out of his eyes, and exchanged a smirk with Scout. He felt better about himself. - _Scout's always open to all kinds of people. And totally non judgemental. And he's laughing. He's not a malicious guy. So, that's cool then _- He looked forward to talking over Jake and Hamilton with Scout the next day. - _Scout's the best person ever to talk people over with. He's really into what makes them tick -  
_  
Scout was snoring lightly and Will was starting to drift off when he heard Hamilton again.  
  
"You're pretty self contained about this."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Though speaking softly, they both sounded far less sleepy than Will felt. His eyelids were so heavy. His face slackened and the room and the quiet conversation faded to black.  
  
"I'm all ..you know."  
  
Very dryly, Jake said "I know."  
  
"And you're all-"  
  
"What."  
  
"Not worked up."  
  
"You think that?" The mattress creaked when she moved. "God. I'm going to regret this, but-" She swallowed audibly.  
  
"Playing with my fingers is evidence that you're, uh, worked up? You know, that's debatable."  
  
Jake arched off the mattress, pulling free the waist of her tops. One, two, three, four layers.  
  
"Jake, wait-"  
  
"They're asleep." She guided his hand up under her shirts.  
  
"Where's your-"  
  
"I took it off to breathe."  
  
"Is this a sketchy moment?" he asked cautiously.  
  
"Are you worried I won't respect you in the morning dude?"  
  
"I am worried. You'll regret this." His hand rested, tensely, under hers on her stomach. The coarse material of her inner shirt grazed the backs of his fingers. He prayed his palms wouldn't sweat. They had tuned the occasional rumble of traffic out of their awareness.  
  
"So take your hand away. You don't want me."  
  
"Are you insane?" Clothing rucked when he sent his hand higher. "Oh."  
  
Very quietly: "Yeah."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Exasperation won out over self consciousness. She turned her head and raised her brows at him.  
  
"No, uh, I mean, why'd you let me?"  
  
"I wanted you to know, I want you too. This place makes me think of all the time I've wasted playing safe. I wish I'd thrown caution to the wind earlier. I should've told you."  
  
"Yeah, you should've. You messed with my head." He did something that made Jake suck in a ragged breath. "I wish we could do something about this.  
  
"You're touching me now."  
  
"Two chaperones. Touch me back before they wake up."

* * *

Will had bad dreams that night. He relived the night they'd got tossed in the room. Once more Scout's voice was in that blaring monotone it got when Scout was truly furious and he was in that stance of total huff he'd perfected over months of stand offs with Bella. Beyond him, Hamilton was so pale. Will's palms sweated and he felt nauseous with fear. He wanted to do something, at the very least to shut Scout up before he provoked something terrible, but he was paralysed. Hamilton was in terrible danger, they were all in terrible danger.  
  
He woke up still afraid. God, he hated this room. This morning he felt so foggy it was a while before he and Scout talked about Jake and Hamilton.  
  
"Ham's playing it cool again now" Scout observed.  
  
"For our benefit. Huh."  
  
Across the room, they saw Hamilton blowing Jake off about something. Her jaw set.  
  
"I'm taking Hamilton aside" Scout said abruptly.  
  
"Uh, Scout-"  
  
"Hamilton." Scout was calling him over.  
  
"Yeah." Hamilton was distracted.  
  
"No, no, no" Will moaned, his head in his hands.  
  
"You know, as a friend you're a really great guy. You're a nice guy. You're pretty cool." - _well, I've got his attention _- Scout glimpsed Will's reaction to his speech so far. He felt like explaining: _I'm about to convince him to blow off his reputation. I've got to build him up first_. He concluded the speech. "But, as a boyfriend you're like, this careening sucky disaster on legs."  
  
Hamilton was frowning at him. "Scout. I'm not planning to date you. Ever."  
  
"Will woke up for some of last night."  
  
"What?" Hamilton looked mortified. He jerked round for confirmation from Will.  
  
Will blushed guiltily.  
  
Hamilton said, panicked "Stop talking about this."  
  
"Look, if you're bisexual, fine. But I think you should stop messing with Jake's head."  
  
- _Ham's going to take a swing at him_ - Will thought with utter conviction. - _Right now. No, wait, maybe Jake can stop him -  
_  
Jake was ambling over now. "What's up?"  
  
"Will heard us last night" Hamilton said sharply.  
  
"Oh god." She backed up a few feet on instinct. "I am so mortified."  
  
Scout shrugged. "So. Ham was wearing his heart on his sleeve for once. I'm just saying he should be more consistent about the way he treats you."  
  
Hamilton glowered.  
  
"It wasn't his heart Scout" Will felt obliged to point out.  
  
"Thanks for putting the romance right in there you ..poet" Jake spat. You'd think poet was a swear word.  
  
"Romance?" Will repeated. "What are you, a girl?"  
  
"Uh ..yeah?"  
  
"What?" went Will.  
  
"What?" went Scout.  
  
"Jake, are you sure?" demanded Hamilton.  
  
She was shivering with nerves. "It's like you said Ham. Everybody's going to know soon. Might as well be honest."  
  
"Honest" Scout burst out. "Are you saying this is true .." He looked at her closely. "Are you really a girl?"  
  
"Um ..I think I look fat in bikinis" she offered.  
  
"Oh. Right." Scout looked nonplussed.  
  
"If you saw her cd collection that would kind of clinch it for you" Hamilton mentioned in a detached tone.  
  
"Shut up fender playing boy."  
  
Will stared at Ham. "How long have you known?"  
  
Hamilton met his eyes. Will saw he was still extremely angry. "An embarrassingly short time."  
  
"This changes nothing" Jake said decisively.  
  
"Huh?" asked Scout.  
  
"As far as you guys are concerned. It's none of your business."  
  
Scout looked as if not knowing any more would kill him. "You know" he said coaxingly "It's psychologically healthier not to bottle stuff up."  
  
"Back up Calhoun."  
  
Will nudged him and muttered "Don't push them any further. Especially Hamilton."  
  
"What? Oh, okay." Scout planned to come back to this later.

* * *

Steven exclaimed "Look! When was that film out in the States, six months ago?" He was walking through Leicester Square with Kate. They had been arguing again, and he wanted to change the subject.  
  
"Six months ago. Hamilton was desperate to see it. He and I went together. You weren't there. Some work thing, you pulled out."  
  
Steven sighed. "Pay a little attention to reality. I maintain our quality of life by holding down a job, Kate. You'd think there were two children in this family."  
  
Kate gasped, either hurt or angry at his tone. He couldn't tell. He was sick of endlessly reading her emotional state and tailoring his responses to it.  
  
"You're the sensitive one" he said. "Why are you unable to take account of my emotional reactions to all of this?"  
  
"Because you don't have any" she shot back. "You're like-" She pointed stabbingly at an out of work actor, spray painted silver and impersonating a statue.  
  
Steven was suddenly aware of the dense crowds. Bystanders were openly eavesdropping on him and Kate. He glared at them and weaved away through knots of young people, avoiding eye contact. It was just like Rawley. Oh, no, in Rawley they would all be dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch. He sniffed disdainfully at local street fashions.  
  
He almost walked into a big yellow sign. It was a police appeal for witnesses of a gay bashing. He stared at it blindly. Kate caught up with him. She barely glanced at the sign. It had nothing to do with her baby.  
  
The sign's date was the day Hamilton had been in Southwark to see Hamlet. Steven doubted many witnesses would emerge. There had been a cloudburst on that day in London, reducing the pedestrians to a blinker visioned few. It occurred to him that he had spent an obsessive amount of time reconstructing last week.  
  
Steven reverted to their argument. "I only said that we don't know police business."  
  
"You always had a strong sense of demarcation." Over the last week she'd been thinking of Steven with anger and contempt. It showed in her voice.  
  
Steven's face was too calm. "If we're not expediting anything, it's self indulgence to stay away from Rawley-"  
  
"I am Not. Leaving. Without Hamilton." Kate interrupted.  
  
"But we're not contributing." Steven was rawly miserable. He looked round self consciously and began to walk again. Fast. 


	7. darkest hour

Not mine.

* * *

John Calhoun hadn't bothered to establish a rapport with the Krudskys. He didn't care for Brian and Karen struck him as being completely in her husband's shadow. She kept looking at Brian's face before she spoke.  
  
But now, here he was in the car with this girl, and he wanted her trust. She gave directions to his driver then sat back, fiddling compulsively with a silver chain bracelet.  
  
"If you were my daughter I'd tell you how irritating that is."  
  
She turned a steady gaze on him. "If. But you think I'm not."  
  
"There have been false claims before."  
  
"You've slept around enough to have to take them seriously?" How could she say that so coolly and wide-eyed? She was sitting in the sunshine, talking unblushingly about invading **his** family, looking about 12. And why should John Calhoun take a verbal spanking from a baby blue collar? -_ how did my generation spawn these sanctimonious brats? _- and he said smoothly "I'm sure you're not anticipating some sort of benefit-"  
  
"Benefit. I met this incredible, romantic, sweet guy. We just - it was beautiful. And, next thing, my Dad is telling us to stay apart. It's not a benefit, Senator."  
  
The car was pulling up at their destination. John read the sign: **Charlie's Gas & Tow**. "You're not interested in the Calhoun money" he said sceptically.  
  
"I'm interested in Scout" she said. "And I'm not allowed to be."  
  
John sighed. "He's not your brother. I want to talk to your dad and find out how this story started."  
  
"-so where is Donna?" John Calhoun wanted Charlie to tell him.  
  
"I have no idea. You are aware that this is personal and uncomfortable stuff for us?"  
  
"It's personal and uncomfortable for me to be accused of being someone's father when I'm not."  
  
"She lives in Carson. I have the address."  
  
"What? Bella, are you in contact with her?" Charlie sounded betrayed, then he added with an obvious view to parenting textbooks "I mean, of course, she's your mom, and of course you - have you been seeing her?"  
  
"No! She sent me a birthday present. Scout tore her address off the parcel."  
  
"Why?" asked John.  
  
"He wanted me to go see her. He said, I'd resolve a whole bunch of issues." Bella huffed out a sigh. "I said, he was only interested in the parentage thing. We argued about it a lot."  
  
"That boy's too controlling" said Charlie. "Aside from the brother thing."  
  
"He's not her brother" said the Senator, ignored.  
  
"I think the arrogance is from his background" Bella was conceding to her father. "But, he's really sweet daddy."  
  
"Scout is not arrogant and controlling." John didn't recognise his naive loving son in this. Besides, how could they bear to criticise him while he was god-knew-where?  
  
"Isn't Sean really sweet?" Charlie was almost pleading with Bella.  
  
"Oh, daddy."  
  
"Mixing with Rawley types can only lead to trouble." It was an article of faith for Charlie.  
  
"Will's a Rawley type now daddy."  
  
"Huh."  
  
"And Jake? Jake's a friend of mine too."  
  
"The boy with the beautiful motorcycle?"  
  
"Yes, that's Jake."  
  
"Isn't he one of the missing boys?" asked John. He'd met Will once, but he didn't know the others.  
  
"He's best friends with Hamilton."  
  
"Hamilton" said Charlie disapprovingly. "He's the one who dates every girl in this town and then breaks her heart." He glared warningly at Bella, who looked un-phased.  
  
"You're very aware of the town gossip" said John, amused.  
  
"I have two little girls to worry about."  
  
"Scout and Will and Jake all keep steering me away from meeting Hamilton" said Bella calmly.  
  
"And these are friends of Scout's" said John, trying to put it together.  
  
"Willie Krudsky's his best friend."  
  
"Scout talks a lot about him."  
  
"He's so smart" Bella boasted.  
  
"I hope the Rawley thing works out for him" Charlie said seriously.  
  
The Senator was surprised. "I thought you hated Rawley."  
  
"Will needs to get out of this town."  
  
Bella said "His dad hits him."  
  
"Bella!" Charlie said sharply. "We don't know that."  
  
"He's been in hospital, all right?" Bella looked stubborn. "Someone should do something."  
  
The Senator had a sinking feeling that the disturbingly self willed Bella had plans for him regardless of whether DNA linked them.

* * *

The young man from the Embassy was anxious to be supportive. He asked how today's meeting with the police had gone.  
  
"It was a waste of time" Steven said roundly.  
  
"Don't say that" said Kate, turning away from him. She explained to Mr Bradley that the Met had brought in a psychologist who specialised in criminal profiling.  
  
"What's next? Psychics?" Steven knew he was being obnoxious, but he was tired and losing hope.  
  
Kate doggedly continued to tell the young man about the profiler. Steven tried to listen.  
  
- _she prides herself on telling a good story ..not accurate, be it noted, but good _- "How did you notice all this detail?" he asked more politely, adding "I was mesmerised by the steel bolt through his skull."  
  
"It was an eyebrow piercing Steven."  
  
"Well I don't know how he expects to be taken seriously as a professional-" he broke off in the middle of his stale rant.  
  
Kate was hunched in the corner of a big armchair. -_ if one of the dogs was here it would go up and give her a nuzzle _- With a stranger present, Steven didn't feel up to public cuddling. "I'm sure he's good at his job" he said awkwardly.

* * *

- _Jake's _- Will searched for a way to phrase it to himself. - _Jake's hovering _- He had noticed Jake's discomfort the first night of sleeping together, but Jake and Hamilton were actually even more awkward now. - _and I wouldn't have thought that possible. It's almost funny, the way they keep staring at each other when they think noone will notice. I'm starting to think Hamilton wants Jake too -  
_  
"You're chewing your lip again" Hamilton told Jake.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Relax" said Scout, sitting up squinting and flopping back down again. Jake looked at him, an object lesson in relaxation, and lay on the extreme edge of the mattress, a perceptible no-go zone around her.  
  
- _they should talk to each other _- Will thought. - _There's so much tension going on there. I mean, Hamilton's crap at English class, but he must be able to string a few sentences together. He's negotiated all those girlfriends this summer. I suppose his best friend having a crush on him is a different kind of deal -  
_  
Hamilton inched into Jake's personal space.  
  
- _they always interact so physically _- Will thought. - _all that staring, all the not accidental touching. Can't they use words? Words aren't so complicated -  
  
_"Ow" Jake yelped.  
  
- _way to sound like a girl, Pratt _- Will thought.  
  
"..digging into me" Jake was whispering.  
  
"Well it's more uncomfortable for me" Hamilton muttered.  
  
"Can't you just take whatever it is out of your pocket?"  
  
"Shut up Jake" he hissed. "(It's not an option.)"  
  
Short, puzzled silence, followed by long, appalled silence.  
  
-_ for some reason I don't feel threatened or scandalised like I would've expected _- Will thought. -_ I've been walled up with these guys for days now and they're okay people. I suppose I'm pretty much prepared to accept any quirks they throw at me. Besides, Jake isn't a surprise. Ham, though .. Does it make me a bad person that I find this freaking hilarious? - He rolled over to get the orange streetlight out of his eyes, and exchanged a smirk with Scout. He felt better about himself. - Scout's always open to all kinds of people. And totally non judgemental. And he's laughing. He's not a malicious guy. So, that's cool then _- He looked forward to talking over Jake and Hamilton with Scout the next day. - _Scout's the best person ever to talk people over with. He's really into what makes them tick -  
_  
Scout was snoring lightly and Will was starting to drift off when he heard Hamilton again.  
  
"You're pretty self contained about this."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Though speaking softly, they both sounded far less sleepy than Will felt. His eyelids were so heavy. His face slackened and the room and the quiet conversation faded to black.  
  
"I'm all ..you know."  
  
Very dryly, Jake said "I know."  
  
"And you're all-"  
  
"What."  
  
"Not worked up."  
  
"You think that?" The mattress creaked when she moved. "God. I'm going to regret this, but-" She swallowed audibly.  
  
"Playing with my fingers is evidence that you're, uh, worked up? You know, that's debatable."  
  
Jake arched off the mattress, pulling free the waist of her tops. One, two, three, four layers.  
  
"Jake, wait-"  
  
"They're asleep." She guided his hand up under her shirts.  
  
"Where's your-"  
  
"I took it off to breathe."  
  
"Is this a sketchy moment?" he asked cautiously.  
  
"Are you worried I won't respect you in the morning dude?"  
  
"I am worried. You'll regret this." His hand rested, tensely, under hers on her stomach. The coarse material of her inner shirt grazed the backs of his fingers. He prayed his palms wouldn't sweat. They had tuned the occasional rumble of traffic out of their awareness.  
  
"So take your hand away. You don't want me."  
  
"Are you insane?" 

Jake wanted to stop thinking. Why wouldn't Ham co-operate?  
  
"Why?" he was asking.  
  
Exasperation won out over self consciousness. She turned her head and raised her brows at him.  
  
"No, uh, I mean, why'd you let me?"  
  
"I wanted you to know, I want you too. This place makes me think of all the time I've wasted playing safe. I wish I'd thrown caution to the wind earlier. I should've told you."  
  
"Yeah, you should've. You messed with my head." He did something that made Jake suck in a ragged breath. "This is a distraction, right?"

"Well, uh yeah." They hadn't seen their captors except when bad takeaway was given them, and not knowing what was going to happen was making their heads run in circles like mice on a wheel. Distraction was good, under the circumstances. Were they going to get out, or - _..stop thinking. stop thinking -_

__

_

* * *

_

__

__

Will had bad dreams that night. He relived the night they'd got tossed in the room. Once more Scout's voice was in that blaring monotone it got when Scout was truly furious and he was in that stance of total huff he'd perfected over months of stand offs with Bella. Beyond him, Hamilton was so pale. Will's palms sweated and he felt nauseous with fear. He wanted to do something, at the very least to shut Scout up before he provoked something terrible, but he was paralysed. Hamilton was in terrible danger, they were all in terrible danger.  
  
He woke up still afraid. God, he hated this room. This morning he felt so foggy it was a while before he and Scout talked about Jake and Hamilton.  
  
"Ham's playing it cool again now" Scout observed. - _Or maybe the inside of his head's as much a mess as mine. God, I want **out** of here so bad I can't think -  
_  
"To impress us. Huh."  
  
Across the room, they saw Hamilton blowing Jake off about something. Jake's jaw set.  
  
"I'm taking Hamilton aside" Scout said abruptly.  
  
"Uh, Scout-"  
  
"Hamilton." Scout was calling him over.  
  
"Yeah." Hamilton was distracted.  
  
"No, no, no" Will moaned, his head in his hands.  
  
"You know, as a friend you're a really great guy. You're a nice guy. You're pretty cool." - _well, I've got his attention _- Scout glimpsed Will's reaction to his speech so far. He felt like explaining:_ I'm about to convince him to blow off his reputation. I've got to build him up first. _He concluded the speech. "But, as a boyfriend you're like, this careening sucky disaster on legs."  
  
Hamilton was frowning at him. "Scout. I'm not planning to date you. Ever."  
  
"Will woke up for some of last night."  
  
"What?" Hamilton looked mortified. He jerked round for confirmation from Will.  
  
Will blushed guiltily.  
  
Hamilton said, panicked "Stop talking about this."  
  
"Look, if you're bisexual, fine. But I think you should stop messing with Jake's head."  
  
- _Ham's going to take a swing at him _- Will thought with utter conviction. - _Right now. No, wait, maybe Jake can stop him -  
_  
Jake was ambling over now. "What's up?"  
  
"Will heard us last night" Hamilton said sharply.  
  
"Oh god." She backed up a few feet on instinct. "I am so mortified."  
  
Scout shrugged. "So. Ham was wearing his heart on his sleeve for once. I'm just saying he should be more consistent about the way he treats you."  
  
Hamilton glowered.  
  
"It wasn't his heart Scout" Will felt obliged to point out.  
  
"Thanks for putting the romance right in there you ..poet" Jake spat. You'd think poet was a swear word.  
  
"Romance?" Will repeated. "What are you, a girl?"  
  
"Uh ..yeah?"  
  
"What?" went Will.  
  
"What?" went Scout.  
  
"Jake, are you sure?" demanded Hamilton.  
  
She was shivering with nerves. "It's like you said Ham. Everybody's going to know soon. Might as well be honest."  
  
"Honest" Scout burst out. "Are you saying this is true .." He looked at her closely. "Are you really a girl?"  
  
"Um ..I think I look fat in bikinis" she offered.  
  
"Oh. Right." Scout looked nonplussed.  
  
"If you saw her cd collection that would kind of clinch it for you" Hamilton mentioned in a detached tone.  
  
"Shut up fender playing boy."  
  
Will stared at Ham. "How long have you known?"  
  
Hamilton met his eyes. Will saw he was still extremely angry. "An embarrassingly short time."  
  
"This changes nothing" Jake said decisively.  
  
"Huh?" asked Scout.  
  
"As far as you guys are concerned. It's none of your business."  
  
Scout looked as if not knowing any more would kill him. "You know" he said coaxingly "It's psychologically healthier not to bottle stuff up."  
  
"Back up Calhoun."  
  
Will nudged him and muttered "Don't push them any further. Especially Hamilton."  
  
"What? Oh, okay." Scout planned to come back to this later.

* * *

Steven exclaimed "Look! When was that film out in the States, six months ago?" He was walking through Leicester Square with Kate. They had been arguing again, and he wanted to change the subject.  
  
"Six months ago. Hamilton was desperate to see it. He and I went together. You weren't there. Some work thing, you pulled out."  
  
Steven sighed. "Pay a little attention to reality. I maintain our quality of life by holding down a job, Kate. You'd think there were two children in this family."  
  
Kate gasped, either hurt or angry at his tone. He couldn't tell. He was sick of endlessly reading her emotional state and tailoring his responses to it.  
  
"You're the sensitive one" he said. "Why are you unable to take account of my emotional reactions to all of this?"  
  
"Because you don't have any" she shot back. "You're like -" She pointed stabbingly at an out of work actor, spray painted silver and impersonating a statue.  
  
Steven was suddenly aware of the dense crowds. Bystanders were openly eavesdropping on him and Kate. He glared at them and weaved away through knots of young people, avoiding eye contact. It was just like Rawley. Oh, no, in Rawley they would all be dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch. He sniffed disdainfully at the street fashions.  
  
He almost walked into a big yellow sign. It was a police appeal for witnesses of a gay bashing. He stared at it blindly. Kate caught up with him. She barely glanced at the sign. It had nothing to do with her baby.  
  
The sign's date was the day Hamilton had been in Southwark to see Hamlet. Steven doubted many witnesses would emerge. There had been a cloudburst on that day in London, reducing the pedestrians to a blinker visioned few. It occurred to him that he had spent an obsessive amount of time reconstructing last week.  
  
Steven reverted to their argument. "I only said that we don't know police business."  
  
"You always had a strong sense of demarcation." Over the last week she'd been thinking of Steven with anger and contempt. It showed in her voice.  
  
Steven's face was too calm. "If we're not expediting anything, it's self indulgence to stay away from Rawley-"  
  
"I am Not. Leaving. Without Hamilton." Kate interrupted.  
  
"But we're not contributing." Steven was rawly miserable. He looked round self consciously and began to walk again. Fast.


	8. out

not mine:

* * *

Steven ploughed through Sopwith's office. The policeman was slumped at his desk looking drained. Wordlessly, he waved to a junior to pour Steven a coffee.  
  
"It seems to me," Steven told him, "that we're all thinking about the aftermath, and how to deal with the Pratts, and now this thing that's come up about the Krudskys-"  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
Steven gestured it away. "I've taken a phone call from the States. Not your problem."  
  
Sopwith nodded. He had enough problems.  
  
"But for us to be considering an aftermath assumes that they'll get out. We don't know they can be found. Be straight with me."  
  
Sopwith felt sorry for him. He had come to like the Dean. "They can be found, and they will. The ransom demand came via a free internet account, and the address attached was non-existent. The We used computer cookies to connect the ransom demand email address with a number of crossreferences, with a number of physical addresses."  
  
"Real physical addresses?" Steven asked doubtfully. "Or fantasy locations?"  
  
Sopwith picked a raisin out of his danish pastry. "Not all of them real" he admitted. "But one looked promising, a taxi driver based in Stoke Newington. We had enough for a search warrant."  
  
Coffee slopped over Steven's hand. "When are you going in?"  
  
"Last night." Moodily, Sopwith piled all the raisins he'd dug out onto an ashtray.  
  
"It was no good then."  
  
"Circumstantial stuff. It convinced **me**, but it wouldn't stand up in court. The suspect's helping us with our enquiries. Apparently, he used to work as a groundsman in St Martin, near where the Calhouns have a house."  
  
"Helpying you with your enquiries? Does that mean being beaten up in a basement?" Shocked at himself, the Dean wasn't sure he would protest, so long as it got the children back.  
  
"Please. He's being shouted at by a grumpy colleague. Me, I have more faith in the address book and SIM card picked up while we trashed the place. I'm going back to them after this coffee."

* * *

Hamilton looked up sharply when Will's stomach rumbled. None of the kidnappers had come near them since yesterday and they had long ago finished the food they had on them when they were taken.  
  
Will folded his arms tightly against his abdomen. None of them said anything. There was nothing to be said. Even Scout had given up banging on the door and shouting. Hamilton let his head fall back on Jake's shoulder.  
  
Scout stared at them. He still thought Jake's explanation was inadequate and short on interesting details.  
  
"What are you thinking?" Will asked idly. He hoped Scout wasn't going to start up again about the kidnappers' plans ("What are they doing? Where have they gone? Why have they gone? What's happening? What happens next?" "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Shut UP Scout.")  
  
Actually, Scout had segued from Jake and Hamilton cuddling to thoughts of Bella, but he really didn't need to share that with the Voice of Reason. "I was thinking about 3rd Eye Blind" he said. "If we could play them on stereo up here it would drive those guys berserk."  
  
"Yeah. That's what we need" Will muttered. "Berserk guys with guns."  
  
"Hey I have an idea" said Hamilton.  
  
They looked at him questioningly. He took his shirt off, got up and started doing star jumps. The floor was shaking. It was noisy.  
  
"Why are you doing this?" Will asked, ultra reasonable.  
  
"It annoys my mom when I do this upstairs" he explained.  
  
Scout laughed.  
  
"It hasn't got a reaction from the guys though." Jake had been watching Hamilton with her mouth half open. He looked so flushed and lickable.  
  
"Maybe they're not in the building" Will said doubtfully.  
  
She couldn't lay a finger on him here. All she could do was run her eyes over the defined muscles like a caress. He was golden from the summer sun.  
  
"We should do something about that" said Scout. "If we don't have to worry about noise-"  
  
Jake was summoning up the warmth and exact texture of Hamilton's skin. There were places where it ran thinly over bone and other places, fleshier, that called out to be-  
  
"We should do something about that" Hamilton repeated. "But what? I thought we'd tried everything."  
  
"Shallow Grave" said Jake. Seeing the floor shake had given her an idea. If noise wasn't an issue-  
  
"Huh?" went Will.  
  
"Film ref?" Scout asked after a minute.  
  
"We're directly under the loft." Jake tilted her head back. "Let's look at the restroom ceiling."

* * *

"There's nothing to stand on in there" Will pointed out as they trooped over. "That hand basin won't take any weight."  
  
"Boost one of us up" suggested Hamilton.  
  
"Jake's lightest," said Scout. "Try that lumpy patch of ceiling. It looks like it's damaged already."  
  
Hamilton was hoisting Jake up. Chunks and sand of plaster came down as she tore at the roof. She held her head twisted to one side, not to get the plaster dust in her eyes.  
  
Hamilton started to cough.  
  
"Let me down."  
  
"Why?" Will burst out. "You've made a good hole there."  
  
"I'm too heavy for Hamilton."  
  
"I'm good" Hamilton protested. He looked up. "You're through to the beam in that spot. We can't give up."  
  
"I'm not giving up. I'm giving you a break."  
  
"I'll take over." Will stepped up. "I'm taller anyway."  
  
Jake nodded to Will. "Yeah, okay." Her fingertips hurt.  
  
"Sit on my shoulders ..can you reach?" Will caught the tail end of a glower from Hamilton. -_ for godsake get over yourself _- he thought - _I'm hardly making a move on Jake -  
_  
"This is much easier" Jake said "enlarging a hole that's already there." She coughed.  
  
"Keep your mouth shut" advised Scout.  
  
"Yeah."

* * *

Jake had a plausible looking escape route going, but Will was flagging. His face got redder and redder, until he buckled. He and Jake managed a controlled fall. Scout and Hamilton helped them up.  
  
"We're fine." Will stared up. "Guys, how are we going to get out?"  
  
"Through the -" Scout stopped and thought about it.  
  
"How do we get ourselves **up** there?" Will put it more directly for the benefit of the Scout-of-thinking.  
  
"If even one of us gets out, he can get help" Scout pointed out.  
  
"I'd prefer we all went" Hamilton said. -_ Imagine how those creeps would take it out on whoever was left if -  
_  
They needed something to climb on. Triumphantly, Hamilton dragged the chest from the window under the hole.  
  
"A rope would be good" said Will.  
  
"The edges are all crumbly" said Jake. "A rope would just fray into the ceiling like a scone. Where's Ham?" He'd gone again.  
  
He came back, stuffing his camera into Jake's backpack. "Getting our stuff. I left Bella's top."  
  
"It's full of glass shards. You can't possibly give it to Bella now" Scout said smoothly. He was cool with that. As far as he was concerned, **Scout** was the guy who got to give Bella nice things. Yeah. Even if Jake wasn't a guy.  
  
Jake wasn't listening to him. Will was boosting her through to the attic. A clump of plaster dropped loudly among the boys as she scrambled through. "Damn," she said. "The places between the beams won't take my weight." Scrabbling noises. "It's pitch black up here." Her face loomed over them. "The echo's creepy. This attic's bigger than I expected."  
  
"You think it connects with the other houses in the terrace?" Scout looked hopeful.  
  
"I wish. Ham ..your keys?"  
  
"Oh ..sure." Hamilton pulled out a bunch of keys. As Will remembered, they were heavy with attachments.  
  
"Miniature torch" Hamilton explained to Scout. To Jake, he said warningly "It doesn't give much light." The torch was mostly a toy.  
  
"Whatever." Jake prepared to catch.  
  
"And then stand back" Will told her. "I'm going to help Scout and Hamilton through."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
He measured the distance. "If I stand the window box on end, I think I can make it."

* * *

They moved, crouched, through the unlit loft with frustrating slowness, Will leading with the toy torch. The others raided the box of matches they'd arrived with, and each held a lit match cupped in their wavering hands, like the world's quietest rock concert. Will worried about their footsteps being heard below. They shuffled, keeping their weight on the wood beams. It was as black as Jake's nightmares and the enclosed air smelt of old dust.  
  
"We must be above a different house by now" Scout said, not for the first time.  
  
Will took a deep breath. "Okay." With his heel, he started booting through the plaster of someone's ceiling.  
  
The room they dropped into was empty. Scout looked round, surprised. "People live like this?"  
  
"Yes Scout. It's a bedsit. People live like this." Sometimes Scout's sheltered status infuriated Will.  
  
Ham was envying the microwave. "If you had one of these in your dorm Jake-"  
  
"You'd never come out" Will finished off for him. Will was being kind of snippy, Hamilton thought.  
  
Scout was still looking around him. "How can anyone fit all their stuff in a room this size?"  
  
"By not having much stuff" said Hamilton. "C'mon, the door's self locking so we can go out without getting whoever lives here robbed."  
  
"Is this your zen/feng shui thing?" Scout asked Hamilton, unconvinced.  
  
"No Scout. It's simpler than that" said Jake. "Poor person few nice possessions, and also, living somewhere crap. Which is why we're studying and hoping to get decent jobs."  
  
"Those of us who don't have a trust fund." Will headed to the door, still irritated. - _we're out _- he thought. - _why aren't I feeling mellow? I feel like my skin's been peeled off and I'm walking around in my bare nerves _-  
  
"Are you channelling Sean or something?" Scout stopped to scribble a contact address and leave it on the chest of drawers. "Well.." off Will's look "we wrecked his ceiling."  
  
They went down narrow stairs bordered by numbered doors, and out onto the street. All round them it was a perfectly ordinary afternoon. They looked round, wholly disorientated for a minute. Unable to relax, Will was watching for the men who'd held them. People walked past, oblivious. Will felt irrationally that strangers ought to be rushing up to hug and congratulate them all, ought to be amazed and delighted to see them, but they went completely unnoticed.  
  
Hamilton was staring upward. "That's our window."  
  
"Have you still got that pen man? Make a note of this address" Scout waved at the door they'd emerged from "and that one."  
  
Will raised his eyebrows at the way his roomie was taking command, but Scout was right, the police would need to know.  
  
Hamilton got coins from Jake. He went to make a phone call. He'd never dialled 911 before.  
  
He got a dial tone.  
  
When he came out of the booth, Will was heading into a corner shop. "He's asking where the police station is" Scout said.  
  
"Yeah, we've got to turn ourselves in." Jake looked tense.  
  
Scout took in her expression curiously. "I can put in a word for you via my Dad" he offered.  
  
"You don't have to-" Jake began, only to be cut off by Hamilton's  
  
"The more support, the better." To Jake, he said fiercely "I want you to stay."  
  
"Stay?" Will, emerging from the shop, was puzzled. "We're going down that road, left at the halal butchers, just beyond the roundabout."  
  
Scout took charge as if by birthright when they got to the police reception desk. "Hi, I'm Scout Calhoun, and these are my friends Will Krudsky, Jake Pratt and Hamilton Fleming. We've been, uh-" The next phrase was so surreal he had to force himself to say it, like a kid feeling self conscious about speaking French aloud - "uh, held against our will. We're Americans."  
  
The constable on the desk looked from them to his newspaper and back again. After a dumbfounded minute he said "Well, ah, this is great. Uhm, I have to phone people. This is wonderful. Are you all right?"  
  
Will caught Scout's eye. It was wonderful to finally feel secure enough to be uncomplicatedly happy. It was only as the tension drained out of him that he realised how all pervading his fear had been.  
  
Other officers, passing through the office, sneaked looks at them. Scout's head turned sideways to read the newspaper report.  
  
"Is there anything you need?" someone asked.  
  
"A hot meal" said Hamilton.  
  
"A hot shower" said Jake.  
  
"A telephone" said Scout.  
  
Will shook his head over them. -_ rich kids. So grabby _- Mind you, food and soap sounded good to him.  
  
"Do you know how long it's been since I brushed my teeth?" Scout said exultantly.  
  
"Man, I don't think he wants to know" Jake said.  
  
"And we already know ..and we don't want to know either" Hamilton added.  
  
"The inside of my mouth feels all furry" Scout continued, still in sharetoomuch mode.

* * *

Sopwith was with Steven when the call came through. Sopwith's side of the conversation consisted of things like "What? That's brilliant.. good, good. Where? ..yes of course I'll be there. Anything else you can tell me?"  
  
He sounded delighted. Social call, Steven supposed, trying not to listen.  
  
Sopwith put the receiver down, and said to him "They're out. The children-" he'd picked up Steven's term- "are out."  
  
"What? You said you'd put me in the picture if there was another house search."  
  
"Ahh. Um, yeah, apparently they escaped and walked to the nearest copshop."  
  
"Good solid police work" Steven quoted without malice. Happiness welled up in him. His face hurt, he couldn't work out why, then realised he was smiling too hard.  
  
"I don't give a hoot, as long as they're all right." Sopwith's tiredness had ebbed away.  
  
"Are they all right? Are they not hurt?"  
  
"Hungry. They haven't had anyone come by with food since, er, last night's raid in Stoke Newington."  
  
_- I always thought depriving Munchie of food would either galvanise or kill him_ - Steven mused. Relief was making him frivolous. "I'm coming with you. You are going-" He realised he didn't know where they were. Never mind, they were safe. Steven shook himself. "Phone parents. I get to phone parents." He tried to steady himself.

* * *

Scout had a private word with Will when they went for a shower. The others had gone elsewhere to be interviewed. Hamilton had scored much kudos with the cops for having sneakily photographed their captors using a time release.  
  
"Will, man, you all right? You were freaking out earlier.."  
  
Will flushed awkwardly. He thought maybe he'd been unfair. "I'm sorry. I was - this is weird, all right?" He'd just been offered a nap in a police cell, and he was on the wrong side of the planet, and - "Life is weird, you know?"  
  
Scout nodded, distracted. While he was in no mood to be critical, the towel he was holding was the most threadbare he'd ever seen. "Looking forward to getting home?" he asked, carefully casual. He had a theory about Will's family, but he wasn't sure.  
  
"Do you think Rawley will send us home to be with our folks for a bit?" It was something one of the Englishmen, meaning to be kind, had suggested to Will.  
  
"Not if you don't want to." It was crystal clear to Scout that Will would sooner spend a week being pummelled by the World Wrestling Foundation.  
  
Will nodded, said nothing.  
  
Scout tried for a little more openness. "Your mom's got to be frantic to see you." He liked Will's mom.  
  
Will's shoulders eased a little.  
  
Scout took pity on him. "We've missed some school over this, and we'll miss more, giving evidence, and court appearances. With your scholarship-"  
  
"I can't afford to miss classes" Will agreed, too fast. "I need to go back to Rawley."  
  
"Not your parents" Scout prodded. - _I'm not pushing him _- he thought. - _I'm giving him an opening to confide in me -_

__

_

* * *

_

__

__

_  
_  
  
Jake rejoined the guys, looking cheerful, and flopped onto the seat next to Hamilton.  
  
"You were flirting with that cop" he said blankly.  
  
"It's nice being a girl again."  
  
"You're supposed to be my girlfriend."

Will and Scout hastily made for the door.

Jake's expression shuttered. "I thought that was just-"  
  
"Just what exactly?"  
  
"While we were in there. You don't do long term. I know that."  
  
"I want long term. I want exclusive. I want forever."  
  
Jake froze, her eyes devouring him. "Ham, you - We're **fifteen** Ham, listen to yourself."  
  
"And our parents are going to split us up. But the minute I can, I'll come for you."  
  
Jake searched his face. He really meant it. She couldn't believe it, but she also couldn't read anything but sincerity in him. She kissed him.

* * *


	9. END

END  
THANK YOU TO GIS would never have posted this to its conclusion without her encouragement :) Heh, I still remember the evil grin with which I used to post this in bite size with cliff hangers on Yahoo, knowing it was driving Gis crazy .

* * *

"We haven't even dated" she said at last.  
  
"No, no dates" he agreed wryly. "We've only spent months finding out about each other."  
  
- _no dates, no sweet talking, and then I let him grope me. I haven't exactly been playing by that book, The Rules _- Jake looked him in the eye. "I want to backtrack."  
  
"Huh?" What was she talking about?  
  
"Look, sometimes things happen, and it all gets out of hand. And for everything to be so out of control.. Because, you know, I think emotion gets factored into the opening moves, and afterwards, you realise it's stupid. And then you're in this false position. And I want to do something about that." She frowned at herself. "Too impulsive."  
  
She had lost him. "Are you talking about dressing up as a boy?"  
  
"I'm talking about last night." Her cheeks were on fire.  
  
"What's the big deal?" - _maybe if I downplay it: no, no, wrong answer _-  
  
"It's a big deal to me." She glared.  
  
"Me too" he admitted. "Look, I don't know what you think my dating life has been-" Her body tensed with remembered jealousy. His dating history was not the thing to bring up "-but when you let me do that-"  
  
"We Backtrack, Fleming. I'm not ready for that."  
  
"I didn't even see anything. And we didn't.. you know."  
  
"We are not doing that again."  
  
"Ever?" he whined.  
  
Against her will, Jake's lips twitched.  
  
- _she'll have other impulsive moments _- Hamilton whited out that thought. Jake could read his face well enough to read his mind and he didn't want her to catch him thinking that thought. "Dates would be good." -_ dates with Jake, yeah _- He looked at her carefully. "You wanted it too."  
  
"Newsflash: girls also have hormones" Jake said grumpily.  
  
Hamilton laughed. "Do I still get to kiss you?"  
  
"Oh yeah. Always." Her most enchanting grin lit up her face.  
  
- _in denial _- Hamilton wondered how Jake could plan so cheerfully for the future as if it were a done deal that she'd be staying at Rawley. Fine. He'd pretend they were just starting out this relationship, like this thing hadn't been building between them since he'd snapped her arrival. Only, please, let her stay.

* * *

Steven paused in the door, savouring the moment. His son looked fine, absolutely none the worse for wear. His heart could burst with pride. - _if he'd been a basket case after all this, that would be perfectly understandable, but there he is (when did he get so tall?) giving support to ..oh. Miss Pratt -  
_  
Hamilton was wrapped round her. Steven sighed silently, momentarily disappointed.  
  
_- so much for my promises to Ms Pratt re: pouncing. The minute he found out Jake was Jacqueline.. He's going to grow up to be a gigolo at this rate. Or a **Guess** model -_ Steven perked up. He couldn't stay pessimistic now. -_ I know now he'll get to grow up. And I have a few years yet of moral influence -  
_  
"Miss Pratt." -_ I'd rather talk to my son, dammit _-  
  
She froze for a second, then glanced back at him over her shoulder.  
  
_- she looks so scared _- "I think we need to talk."  
  
"I'm sorry-" she began.  
  
"I'm coming with" Hamilton interrupted. He had expected his mother to be here, his dad alone threw his schemes off. "Where's Mom?"  
  
Steven frowned. He and Kate had had so many senseless arguments recently that he had been avoiding her. He had, insanely, forgotten to call her. He knew she would find that unforgivable. He would himself. "Call her on this." He handed his cellphone to Hamilton. "I was so excited.."  
  
Excited? Hamilton was sceptical. His dad hadn't even hugged him. The dean led Jake out of the room, and he dogged their footsteps. - _he hasn't even spoken to me. Hey, I'm not gonna beg - _"Who's taking care of the dogs?" he heard himself say.  
  
"Hamilton, later" his dad said, hugging him unexpectedly. There was a tear on Steven's cheek. "I'm so proud of you, you know that?"  
  
Hamilton was startled enough to let them step away from him. The interview room clicked in a marked manner, Jake and his dad on the other side.

* * *

Jake paid Steven close attention. She mostly knew him from Hamilton's complaints about his lack of involvement. His cold demeanour bore Hamilton out.  
  
"I'm sorry" she stammered, her stance defensive.  
  
He said nothing. Without much faith in his powers of reading people, he was trying to read her.  
  
"I mean, I'm not sorry I got caught. It's like, I've been waiting to be found out for months." She spoke rapidly, caught herself gesticulating nervously, froze.  
  
"So. You're claiming it's a relief to be caught." His thoughts were more positive than his tone, which was arctic. The image of Jake hugging herself smugly and laughing at him over her deception was false. He saw that now. She was almost frantic over her false position.  
  
"I did this on a stupid impulse and then I didn't know how to get out of it."  
  
_-what kind of impulse could possibly lead to this stunt?_ - Steven asked himself. - _what kind of thinking _- "Your teachers inform me you're an intelligent buh-child. Why did you do this?" He moved round to face her. She was standing sideways-on to him.  
  
Jake flushed miserably. "I wanted, I needed, my mom-"  
  
"What possible positive outcome..?" Steven's voice trailed off, genuinely bewildered. He thought about Monica Pratt, and the opinion he had formed of her.  
  
"I thought she'd come right away and take me back" Jake said. "She put me in a convent last time."  
  
"Best place for you no doubt" the Dean said primly. He never let his boys know what he thought of their parents.  
  
Jake tilted her head back to keep the tears from flowing. "I loved it in Rawley. I was doing well-"  
  
"Academically, yes" was the chill response.  
  
"In every way. I had friends."  
  
"To whom you lied" the Dean felt obliged to point out. "Unless - was this a conspiracy?"  
  
"No." Jake shook her head, a drop escaping from the corner of her eye. "No one knew. Ham only found out while we were locked up. I told him."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I couldn't stand lying to him any more."  
  
"And yet, you have a considerable stomach for lying."  
  
Jake looked guilty. "I never wanted to, I never meant it to go this far. I- Have I got a criminal record?"  
  
"The Embassy want to talk to you about passport fraud" the Dean said, not forgiving her yet.  
  
Jake paled dramatically.  
  
"Sit down" he said roughly. "Your mother has retained an excellent lawyer. What is more, you're a minor. This can be lived down. For now, young lady, you're in trouble."  
  
"With my mom." Jake's voice was hushed and frightened.  
  
"With Me."

* * *

:  
  
Scout woke up the next morning. Sheets. No body else there. He stretched, loving it. The phone was ringing. Hearing his father's voice when he picked it up was good too.  
  
"Dad! No, you didn't wake me up."  
  
This was his father's third phone call since he'd got out. -_ he's desperate to hook up with me. This must've been terrible for him and Mom - _Scout thought. He picked through his clothes. "A choice of Tshirts. And they're all of them clean" he said happily.  
  
"uh.. yes. Focus here, Scout."  
  
Scout wanted to sigh. People kept saying that to him. "Is this call about something?"  
  
"I've spoken to Bella."  
  
Scout's complacence ebbed away.  
  
"Scout?"  
  
"I'm still here, Dad." - _this conversation should be face to face_ - "So, uh.."  
  
"She's not crazy" John said reproachfully.  
  
_- I never said she was. You said that, Dad_ - "No." Scout wondered frantically what had been going on behind his back. If he'd only been there he could have put some spin on whatever ungodly revelations had come out.  
  
"-quite a formidable girl" his father was saying, still reproachful.  
  
- _he's talking about Bella? _- Scout determined to get a verbatim report on her exchanges with his dad. "She comes by it honestly, Senator." Despite himself, his voice was bitter.  
  
John stopped short, having left something vital unsaid. "Scout, she's not mine."  
  
Silence.  
  
"She's not. Donna confirmed it."  
  
"You convinced her to go to see her mom?" Scout sounded totally impressed, as if he thought his Dad had unleashed the diplomatic equivalent of comic book super powers. He sounded very young.  
  
John laughed a little.  
  
"Dad, don't laugh" Scout said, hurt.  
  
"No, I just wish I impressed you this much more often."  
  
Scout didn't answer.  
  
"She wanted to know. I didn't overpersuade her. I don't think I could have." John thought about the Paige the highly-focussed, and resigned himself to Scout's taste for strong minded women.  
  
"She's really not my sister?" Scout confirmed. Of all the ways to be told, this was the last he would have thought possible. - _there's a ocean between me and Bella _- He didn't know how to wait before contacting her.  
  
"I swear" John confirmed.  
  
"Did you like her?" He wanted it to be yes.  
  
John hesitated, thinking about it. "Yes. Yes, I did."  
  
"Will's gonna have her phone number." Scout was thinking aloud. He supposed Sean was still an issue, but easily dismissed him.  
  
"Yes, about Will." John paused. "Has Will talked to you about his home life?"  
  
"Well, he - what do you mean?"  
  
"Will's dad." John listened for Scout's response. "You're not doing Will any favours by covering up."  
  
Scout had wanted to talk to his father about this ever since he'd begun to suspect. "I think his dad hits him. Will's ashamed about it."  
  
"He shouldn't be ashamed. He's the victim."  
  
"Being a victim isn't a great source of pride" said Scout, surprised at his Dad's thinking. "He says he's never going back, even if he gets kicked out of Rawley."  
  
"Is that likely, getting kicked out I mean?" asked John. If so, it was news to him, and he'd discussed Will with the Dean.  
  
"God, no. He's, like, a genius. But he gets insecure. Says he feels like an imposter."  
  
"I see." He didn't.  
  
"Dad" Scout said. "How'd you find out?"  
  
"Bella told me. She wants me to help Will."  
  
Scout smiled. "Me too. I want that too."  
  
"Will needs to cooperate in being helped" John warned.  
  
Scout said "I'll talk to him."

* * *

  
like tree roots breaking through concrete incremental  
organic, messy, the forces of nature overwhelm formal constraint  
the heart's pulse, subtle, irresistible  
breaches the worn out armour of dignity  
instinct will not be denied

"What's it about?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Uh-huh." Scout read the poem title: Family Ties. "Spoken to your folks yet?"  
  
"My mom. She said Dad was really freaked out."  
  
- _he was?_ - "She said that?"  
  
Will gave him a suspicious look. "Yeah, sure ..I mean, obviously."  
  
"Oh, yeah. Sure." -_every time I think I've got this figured out_.. -  
  
"Why wouldn't he be freaked out?" Will demanded. "I'm his only son."  
  
"It doesn't stop him hitting you" Scout burst out. He could have kicked himself.  
  
Will went so pale his freckles showed up. "I never said, you never-" How long had Scout known?  
  
"Bella told me" Scout wished he could have talked to her, or even to Will's old friend Sean, before getting into this. -_ too late now -_ "He hits you, right?"  
  
"The thing with the rib was years ago."  
  
Scout waited.  
  
"Only when I - I mean, it's not like, all the time. It's not serious."  
  
Scout waited for more.  
  
"I think he hits mom." Will wouldn't meet his eyes.  
  
"That's ..serious." Scout hadn't expected that part.  
  
"I've begged her to leave him." Will's head was hanging to hide his face.  
  
Scout felt out of his depth. He reached out hesitantly. "It's gonna be okay, man."  
  
"How can it? I'm sixteen; it'll be **years**-"  
  
"You got out. You are out," Scout reminded him. "Termtime, you're in Rawley. Dad asked me: during vacations, can you stay with us?" It had seemed so easy, talking to his father, but now, he was afraid Will's pride would kick in and he'd refuse.  
  
Will was too startled to be offended. "Why?"  
  
"You're my best friend." - _quick, get him to agree while he's off balance_ -  
  
"A charity case" Will couldn't help observing.  
  
"An over achieving pain in the ass" Scout corrected. "It's a happy ending Will."  
  
"For me. What about my mom?"  
  
"I don't know." Scout looked serious. "Just keep telling her what you think she should do."

* * *

The Flemings sat in the hotel lobby pretending to read. Kate and Steven kept looking up at Hamilton. Hamilton was watching the door. Finn had taken Scout and Will back to the States that morning, but Jake's future was undecided. Monica had flown in from Paris today, where she'd been fulfilling a contract, and right now Jake was lunching with her.  
  
- _tonight, I'll make the decision_ - Steven promised himself. All of them were having dinner together.  
  
Jake burst into the room muttering to herself. "Mildred Pierce. I don't fricken believe it."  
  
- _Jake is forgetting herself, to use language like that. Perhaps she hasn't seen me and Kate on her way in. I'll clear my throat_ - Kate failed, the Dean noted with exasperation, to pull Jake up. - _I always have to be the bad cop around here - _he thought resentfully  
  
What Kate said was, "The daughter's the villain in that." She laughed.  
  
Jake rolled her eyes, then, seeing Hamilton was confused, explained. "It's an old film. It's about a single woman and her only daughter." She looked sulky.  
  
Kate took up the explanation. "The mother works herself to the bone to make a life for them both and the daughter goes off the rails."  
  
"Sub text, Mrs Fleming. I get it." Jake played with her fringe.  
  
- _this is a single-issue interpretation of the text_ - Steven thought, but joined in anyway. "Joan Crawford's not such an uncaring parent; she covers up for her little girl at the crime scene."  
  
Hamilton and Jake both looked at him sharply.  
  
- _they haven't given up yet on the hope of transferring her to the other side of the lake. They watch me avidly for signs of a decision. I can't come to a decision. The sensible move would be to expel her, but that's a harsh thing to do to a neurotic misguided child. She's intelligent, that's not in question. She's not a malicious person (and in that I'm relying on the faculty's assessment rather than my son's heartfelt testimonials). On the other hand, she's made me look professionally and personally stupid, defrauded and hurt the school, lied and cheated for months, and seems to have a very poor attitude to authority. What kind of example is my decision going to set? I suppose I won't find out until I work out what that decision is -  
  
_Jake was saying "You know, I always thought Mildred loved her job. She said she sacrificed everything to the girl but she got her fulfilment living like that."  
  
Kate's voice rose. "How much sacrifice do you expect of a parent? It's her life Jake."  
  
They both looked angry.  
  
- _all right. Too much intensity here. Time to intervene _- "Why are we discussing a black and white melodrama in such detail?" Steven used his jovial tone.  
  
"There's a musical version of Mildred Pierce being adapted for Broadway" Jake said.  
  
"Really." Kate was over her flash of temper.  
  
"My mom's got the title role." Jake spoke without enthusiasm.  
  
"That's great" Kate gushed. She was over compensating, Steven thought critically.  
  
"Coming to see me was part of her research for the part."  
  
Kate opened her mouth, then closed it.  
  
Steven briskly undercut Jake's self pity. "One of the reasons, perhaps, but also Monica is here to discuss your next move with us."  
  
"Move?" Hamilton said, too loud.

* * *

Jake came downstairs wearing a deep berry red skirt. It was longish, and narrow, with a slit up the back so she could walk.  
  
"You look-" Hamilton remembered his parents' presence, and rephrased "- good."  
  
Jake tugged at the skirt. "I can't run in this."  
  
"What would you want to run from, young lady?" Steven asked disapprovingly.  
  
- _Um, this meal?_ - Hamilton thought. He was kind of curious to see Jake's mom, but basically he would be happy to skip it. He gripped Jake's hand tightly in the taxi to the restaurant, all through Kensington Gardens and south to Chelsea.  
  
Actually, seeing Monica, when she at last arrived, was interesting. She was a forceful, athletic looking woman, groomed to within an inch of her life, with a utilitarian short haircut and a designer suit on. Right now she was expending her full personality on his parents. Hamilton wondered if they were as unnerved as he would have been. For them, the resemblances to - and the differences from - Jake wouldn't be as freaking-out. For him, it was like Jake's evil twin, or evil aunt.  
  
"It wouldn't kill you to pluck your eyebrows sweetie" she was saying now.  
  
"It wouldn't really help with the boy disguise" Jake said, surly.  
  
Monica eyed her. She was at a loss. "I still don't understand why-"  
  
"I told you."  
  
"Your explanation made no sense."  
  
The Dean nodded vigorously at this.  
  
"You never have time-" Jake whined.  
  
"I make quality time-"  
  
"Quality time is a lie" Hamilton heard himself say. "It means, put your emotions on hold and schedule your crisis so's we can fit it into a timetable."  
  
Jake nodded, but the adults, after an uncomprehending minute, tuned the teenagers out again.  
  
"Are you telling me that you haven't expelled my daughter? (don't slouch Jacqueline)."  
  
"Expulsion's a major decision" said Kate.  
  
- _Ms Pratt'd do it in a heartbeat if it were her call _- Hamilton thought.  
  
"And this is all going to be kept out of the papers?" Monica was amazed.  
  
"The fact that the children more or less rescued themselves gave me some leverage with the police." Steven looked impossibly smug. "Sopwith made them keep data back from reporters."  
  
Hamilton smiled at his dad, so unusually readable. "You're da man."  
  
Steven's own smile widened, but he said, "Proper English, please Hamilton."  
  
Jake chuckled, the first sign of relaxation she'd shown all evening.  
  
"Try to cultivate a more attractive laugh. That sounds so ugly." Monica went back to Steven. "The fraud on my daughter's records will spoil her later chances.."  
  
Jake tensed right up again. Hamilton wished he could hold her hand under the table - it wasn't like either of them had an appetite - but Kate had determinedly seated them opposite each other. Stealthily, he stretched a foot under the table to find Jake's.  
  
Monica gave him an odd look, losing her train of thought.  
  
"What we need to do, is look at the options" said Kate. "Jake's coming back to Rawley is out of the question -"  
  
"Mom!" Hamilton burst out, betrayed. "Across the lake-"  
  
"Out of the question, Hamilton" his father confirmed.  
  
Hamilton and Jake exchanged desperate glances.  
  
At this unhelpful point, an alarm went off inside Monica's crocodile skin handbag. She scooped out her cell phone. Jake's mouth twisted as her mother launched into a call.  
  
Too softly for the Pratts to hear, Kate murmured to Steven "She's really burying herself in that Joan Crawford thing."  
  
Steven kept his attention on Monica, who was issuing staccato ultimatums. "I understand she's very good at her job" he said disingenuously.  
  
"I would be channelling my inner Lizzie Boden" Kate said, a little louder.  
  
Her husband and son checked quickly to see had Monica noticed. Jake was watching the Flemings with painful acuteness, not able to hear.  
  
"You don't like her either" Steven said.  
  
"No! I - I thought you did."  
  
"I wouldn't let her take care of our **dogs**. Certainly not a child."  
  
"That girl can't come back to Rawley" Kate repeated.  
  
"**Please**" Hamilton said urgently.  
  
Steven shook his head. "Too bad an example, Munch. What about St Joseph's? It's a good place, and the Dean is a contact of mine. Paul's a decent man.. A fresh start, sweep this under the carpet-"  
  
"Send me too."  
  
His parents stared at Hamilton.  
  
"Leave us?" his mother said. "Are you serious?"  
  
"You're really serious about loving Jake" his father said slowly. Steven was thinking about ill phrased wishes. For weeks, he'd wanted his son to be mature and treat girls as people not toys. He hadn't seen it impacting on him. Now he was running the Hamilton/Jake dynamic through his memory.  
  
"Jake needs me. (I told you I was serious.)"  
  
"You can't leave us" Kate protested.  
  
Monica gave the other woman a curious look, slipping the phone back in her bag. "Your son's leaving?"  
  
"For St Joseph's." Hamilton saw his father nod reluctantly. At least he wasn't dismissing this out of hand.  
  
Jake looked panicked.  
  
"So's Jake," Ham added.  
  
Both Monica's eyebrows went up. "Really?"  
  
Steven kicked his son under the table, and said "My colleague Paul Ffoulkes runs a very highly regarded school fifty miles north of Rawley, co- educational, with an excellent academic record-" - _damn -_ he was thinking. - _How did Hamilton get me on board with this? -  
_

__

__

MONTHS LATER  
  
- _the thing about quality time_ - Hamilton thought, jogging across St Joseph's lawn to meet his father - _the thing about quality time is, now he spends time with me with me, not with half his mind on school budgets and timetables_ -  
  
His dad hugged him. "Officially, I'm here for a committee meeting with Ffoulkes, so we just have the lunch hour ..where's Jake?"  
  
"Here." Breathlessly, running up.  
  
Steven studied the children carefully. Paul said they were doing well, but it never hurt to check. "I hope you weren't trying to skip a meal" he told Jake sternly. "I've heard about these crash diets.."  
  
"Mr Fleming" Jake said as Hamilton steered them both to the car and to lunch "you've been reading articles about the Typical Teenager again."

END

Thanks for reading


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